41–50 of 129 posts
> Since systematic excavations began in 2019, a number of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figural sculptures have been found at Karahan Tepe, often in unusual combinations. Several examples of a human carrying a leopard on his back. The leopards in these sculptures are not slung on the man’s back as if he had killed them in the hunt or tamed them enough to carry them, but rather are depicted snarling, with teeth bared…
The ancient Sumerians invented cuneiform writing about 5000-5500Y ago. This is as long before ancient Sumer as ancient Sumer is before us today. Mind-boggling.
Let that sink in!
It is extraordinary to me that they don't get as much clout as they deserve for maintaining human civilization for so long. They literally evolved cryptologically sound techniques for maintaining their history - through fires, floods, calamity and Mother Nature.
We can't even keep our stories straight in the modern era for longer than 8 months.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I guess Cleopatra feels somewhat 'close' to us due to the surviving literary and archeological artifacts from the Roman empire. Shakespeare wrote a play about her and Elizabeth Taylor played her in a movie. The effect of modern media is 99% of the reason why Cleopatra feels more "contemporary" than, say, Hatshepsut (for whom plenty of artifacts exist) or even Nefertiti.
Cleopatra was a contemporary of Julius Caesar, and played a major role in his biography. (Which is why Plutarch wrote about her, which is why Shakespeare wrote about her, which is why 20th Century Fox made the film about her.) Julius Caesar is... a big name... in the West. Call that "the effect of media" if you like, but it's a thing. Hatshepsut and Nefertiti lived respectively 1400 and 1300 years before Cleopatra, a…
I don't think Sharespeare would have mentioned her had she not figured prominently in the lives of main figures during the fall of the Republic.
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> I guess Cleopatra feels somewhat 'close' to us due to the surviving literary and archeological artifacts from the Roman empire. It's due to the historiography of western civilization that for so long always traced its origins back to Greece (and Cleopatra was, of course, Greek.) Compare to Mesopotamia, Sumer mentioned by the parent comment. There may be more surviving cuneiform literature than Greek and Latin. The…
I really hate that I'm even typing these words right now, but wouldn't this be one of the few fields where modern LLMs would potentially provide a real capability that was previously lacking? I'm imagining an LLM might be able to provide rough first pass translations and provide hints about which specific tablets might be most interesting for a human that can't possibly look at them all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I guess Cleopatra feels somewhat 'close' to us due to the surviving literary and archeological artifacts from the Roman empire. It's due to the historiography of western civilization that for so long always traced its origins back to Greece (and Cleopatra was, of course, Greek.) Compare to Mesopotamia, Sumer mentioned by the parent comment. There may be more surviving cuneiform literature than Greek and Latin. The…
> There aren't enough people who know Sumerian and Akkadian one LLM is enough!
I truly believe we might one day, soon hopefully, see an LLM making observations about our history which blow open the horizon of humanities future.
Imagine, if you will, some of the secrets buried in these texts, revealing to us all just how it all began, and where things are headed.
In the grand context of galactic-scale civilizations, we might be in for some surprises ..
The ancient Sumerians invented cuneiform writing about 5000-5500Y ago. This is as long before ancient Sumer as ancient Sumer is before us today. Mind-boggling.
The original caretakers of the Australian continent have been telling the same stories orally for 40,000 years. Let that sink in! It is extraordinary to me that they don't get as much clout as they deserve for maintaining human civilization for so long. They literally evolved cryptologically sound techniques for maintaining their history - through fires, floods, calamity and Mother Nature. We can't even keep our stor…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There aren't enough people who know Sumerian and Akkadian one LLM is enough!
I'm really (honestly) waiting for the day when an LLM gets into the Akkadian and Sumerian texts and starts revealing extremely mind-blowing details to the world. I truly believe we might one day, soon hopefully, see an LLM making observations about our history which blow open the horizon of humanities future. Imagine, if you will, some of the secrets buried in these texts, revealing to us all just how it all began, a…
They’d be very, very good at reading, discerning, summarizing, etc, vast quantities of text like this.