Ancient Tablets Decoded; Shed Light on Assyrian Empire

[Adsos Letter]

Source: National Geographic News
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
December 9, 2009


Photograph courtesy University of Akron

Meticulous ancient notetakers have given archaeologists a glimpse of what life was like 3,000 years ago in the Assyrian Empire, which controlled much of the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf.

Clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform, an ancient script once common in the Middle East, were unearthed in summer 2009 in an ancient palace in present-day southeastern Turkey.

(Related: "Ancient Assyrian Treasures Found Intact in Baghdad.")

Palace scribes jotted down seemingly mundane state affairs on the tablets during the Late Iron Age—which lasted from roughly the end of the ninth century B.C. until the mid-seventh century B.C.

But these everyday details, now in the early stages of decoding, may open up some of the inner workings of the Assyrian government—and the people who toiled in the empire, experts say.

Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091209-ancient-tablets-decoded.html

[aquart]

1. Those scribes were a hoot.

For instance, the word for woman is quite graphic.

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or this version:

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<http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/nepsd-frame.html>

This is Sumerian but they'd keep using the sign for the thing even when the word was different. I have no idea how anybody read that stuff.

[Hekate]

2. KnR. I'm reading the link.

:hi:

Hekate

[comtec]

3. seriously cool!

yes im a ancient civ geek! one reason i LOVE stargate! =3

[comtec]

4. seriously cool!

yes im a ancient civ geek! one reason i LOVE stargate! =3

[niyad]

5. k and r