By Dr. Senta German
Log in Jeff Kelman 10 years agoPosted 10 years ago. Direct link to Jeff Kelman's post “"Prehistory ends with Uru...” "Prehistory ends with Uruk, where we find some of the earliest written records." Why here...why in this one spot amongst the entire globe did people begin to take note of their history in written form? • (11 votes) Madeliv 10 years agoPosted 10 years ago. Direct link to Madeliv's post “Actually written language...” Actually written language is believed to have developed independently in different areas of the world. This provides a nice overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing#Locations_and_timeframes (15 votes) Rebekah 9 years agoPosted 9 years ago. Direct link to Rebekah's post “When archaeologists disco...” When archaeologists discovered this form of writing, how long did it take them to decifer it? Is it a language that is passed down, and some people just know it from ancestors and such? Do a lot of archaeologists know how to read this form of writing, or is it somewhat rare? • (4 votes) Jay 9 years agoPosted 9 years ago. Direct link to Jay's post “This very much depends, i...” This very much depends, in the 1500 and 1600s European explorers were finding examples of Cuneiform tablets so modern archaeologists were not responsible for the discovery of cuneiform. It wasn't until 1857 that scholars confirmed the successful translation of the language (four different scholars were given the same piece of text to independently translate) although some scholars were successfully translating in the 1830s. As with the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs the work was made easier by the discovery of a trilingual tablet, discovered by Sir Henry Rawlinson who was able to translate the Ancient Persian and from there the other two languages http://global.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Creswicke-Rawlinson. It is also worth noting that the above is very much a Eurocentric view of attempts at translation, there is evidence that cuneiform was known to Medieval Islamic scholars, that they too investigated and attempted to translate the languages. Sadly, as with many things, hard evidence of this is not so easy to come by (it's all Wikipedia and vague hints) and there is no evidence that any of these scholars ever succeeded in their attempts. So, to sum up, the process of deciphering cuneiform took anywhere from c.400 to c.30 years depending on how you judge but no, it was not a language which was passed down to recent times ("the last known document written in the cuneiform script dates to the first century B.C.E.") (5 votes) RobotGirly 9 years agoPosted 9 years ago. Direct link to RobotGirly's post “So the clay tablet is kin...” So the clay tablet is kinda like paper's prototype, huh? • (5 votes) Kara Larson 9 years agoPosted 9 years ago. Direct link to Kara Larson's post “The Romans also used tabl...” The Romans also used tablets, but their tablets were made with fresh wax. Usually they were used for mathematical computation, but some were used to record Roman history. (2 votes) Simone Shaheen 10 years agoPosted 10 years ago. Direct link to Simone Shaheen's post “Where is the Tigris River...” Where is the Tigris River? • (4 votes) ellierose 10 years agoPosted 10 years ago. Direct link to ellierose's post “The Tigris river is near ...” The Tigris river is near modern day Iraq and Syria Kevin Gøhler 9 years agoPosted 9 years ago. Direct link to Kevin Gøhler's post “What is Hatian language??...” What is Hatian language?? Who spoke that? • (4 votes) evelyn.a.yap 9 years agoPosted 9 years ago. Direct link to evelyn.a.yap's post “If "The last known docume...” If "The last known document written in the cuneiform script dates to the first century B.C.E." which I understand as it being a dead language and therefore not used anymore for centuries, how are we able to decipher the characters and meanings of cuneiform script, or even the sounds (to say that "There isn’t a sound that a human mouth can make that this script can’t record")? Was there something found similar to Rosetta Stone to help decipher the script? • (3 votes) JMcNamaranms 10 years agoPosted 10 years ago. Direct link to JMcNamaranms's post “how did you now what they...” how did you now what they wright on the clay or mud means • (2 votes) Chris Hennes 9 years agoPosted 9 years ago. Direct link to Chris Hennes's post “If you continue on in thi...” If you continue on in this series you will read about the deciphering of the tablets here: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/ancient-near-east1/sumerian/a/cuneiform (3 votes) barbararcneves98 5 years agoPosted 5 years ago. Direct link to barbararcneves98's post “Did they sell/exchange th...” Did they sell/exchange their art? • (3 votes) rachelt2003 9 years agoPosted 9 years ago. Direct link to rachelt2003's post “Sumer is in African, righ...” Sumer is in African, right? • (0 votes) Christian Lumley 9 years agoPosted 9 years ago. Direct link to Christian Lumley's post “Sumeria was a Mesopotamia...” Sumeria was a Mesopotamian civilization, and therefore was located around where Iraq is today. Sumerians were some of the first farmers in the world, yes. (5 votes) Marie 9 years agoPosted 9 years ago. Direct link to Marie's post “"There isn’t a sound that...” "There isn’t a sound that a human mouth can make that this script can’t record." What about syllables or sounds that were not in the languages that used cuneiform to write in (I'm sure there must be some)? What about large consonant clusters? • (2 votes) Jackie Rothstein 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Jackie Rothstein's post “In the video, Writing Cun...” In the video, Writing Cuneiform, it is explained that the language was constructed to represent sounds. Each stroke represents a sound. So, I assume that an ancient Sumerian, or even a particularly talented modern scholar could listen to a spoken sound, and then assign a particular stroke or letter to represent that sound. (1 vote)Want to join the conversation?
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Henry_Rawlinson#Work
Is Sumer came before the Mesopotamia civilization?
Did Sumerians introduced farming?
