Errrr.... actually that looks like ancient electronics schematics language. Has anyone considered that possibility?
The ability to harness electricity had not been invented yet, by a few thousand years.
This seems unlikely.
How to write in Cuneiform
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Re: How to write in Cuneiform
#12Love the spyware download, great post
Re: How to write in Cuneiform
#13Good stuff, but this has triggered my pet peeve! The title should be: How to Write in Cuneiform, the Oldest Known Writing System in the World The added word being: KNOWN You can argue that, "well, obviously!" but correctness and exactness are what makes science, history, journalism, etc good, and allowing incorrectness like this is a step backwards. I read a history book when I was a teenager (can't remember which on…
Exactly, knowing what we know about anthropology, it's extremely unlikely cuneiform was the oldest writing. What's more likely is that other human groups must have invented ways for storing information, but they didn't survive.
What discoveries in anthropology make you think that cuneiform is unlikely to be the oldest?
Writing has only been invented independently a few times in history, so it seems reasonable that cuneiform could be the first.
Re: How to write in Cuneiform
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly, knowing what we know about anthropology, it's extremely unlikely cuneiform was the oldest writing. What's more likely is that other human groups must have invented ways for storing information, but they didn't survive.
And it would seem safe to assume that cuneiform developed from something else
Not necessarily. Logically, there must have been a first writing system (even if cuneiform wasn't it), so you can't show cuneiform wasn't the first on the basis of "something must have come before it".
Re: How to write in Cuneiform
#15Seems relevant to mention https://dumbcuneiform.com/ here. I haven't ordered from them, but was always amused by the idea.
Re: How to write in Cuneiform
#16Errrr.... actually that looks like ancient electronics schematics language. Has anyone considered that possibility?
The ability to harness electricity had not been invented yet, by a few thousand years. This seems unlikely.
Not so hasty - I'm pretty sure this was powering the Antikithera Mechanism and the ancient roman Analytical Engine and other such early AI devices - so they would have needed some sort of schematic language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery
The Baghdad Battery is the name given to an artifact consisting of a ceramic pot, a tube of copper, and a rod of iron fixed together with bitumen. It was discovered in present-day Khujut Rabu, Iraq in 1936,[1][2] close to the ancient city of Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthian (150 BC – 223 AD) and Sasanian (224–650 AD) empires, and it is believed to date from either of these periods.[3]
Its origin and purpose remain unclear. Wilhelm König, at the time director of the laboratory of the National Museum of Iraq, suggested that the object functioned as a galvanic cell, possibly used for electroplating, or some kind of electrotherapy. There is no electroplated object known from this period, and the claims are universally rejected by archaeologists. An alternative explanation is that it functioned as a container for magic spells for protection, defense or curses.[2]
Ten similar clay vessels had been found earlier. Four were found in 1930 in Seleucia dating to the Sassanid period. Three were sealed with bitumen and contained a bronze cylinder, again sealed, with a pressed-in papyrus wrapper containing decomposed fiber rolls. They had been held in place with up to four bronze and iron rods sunk into the ground, and their cult meaning and use are inferred. Six other clay vessels were found nearby in Ctesiphon. Some had bronze wrappers with badly decomposed cellulose fibers. Others had iron nails or lead plates.[2]
Re: How to write in Cuneiform
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it would seem safe to assume that cuneiform developed from something else
Not necessarily. Logically, there must have been a first writing system (even if cuneiform wasn't it), so you can't show cuneiform wasn't the first on the basis of "something must have come before it".
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Re: How to write in Cuneiform
#18The "How to Write" part seems to be entirely in video form, and the link seems to be a thin blog post introducing it, so it would be good to have a `[video]` tag in the title here.
Re: How to write in Cuneiform
#19The expert from the videos, Irving Finkel, is a wonderful speaker and personality.
I highly recommend watching his lectures and British museum feature on YouTube if you’re interested in the ancient world.
Re: How to write in Cuneiform
#20> Like Japan’s kanji alphabet, the oldest writing system in the world is syllabic. I think they have that mixed up with hiragana and katakana. Kanji are Chinese characters.
Well, if you call them kanji, they're Japanese characters. (Japanese characters with a name that literally means "Chinese characters", but still not Chinese characters.) Kanji are very much not syllabic.
But Chinese characters are.