Detail from the tablet found at Ziyaret Tepe. Inscribed with Cuneiform characters, the tablet consists of a list of women's names, many of which appear to be from a previously unknown language (John MacGinnis)
Posted on 05/12/2012 11:32:27 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The archaeologists working at Ziyaret Tepe, the probable site of the ancient Assyrian city of Tushan, believe that this language may have been spoken by deportees originally from the Zagros Mountains, on the border of modern-day Iran and Iraq. In keeping with a policy widely practiced across the Assyrian Empire, these people may have been forcibly moved from their homeland and resettled in what is now south-east Turkey, where they would have been set to work building the new frontier city and farming its hinterland.
The evidence for the language they spoke comes from a single clay tablet, which was preserved after it was baked in a fire that destroyed the palace in Tushan at some point around the end of the 8th century BCE. Inscribed with cuneiform characters, the tablet is essentially a list of the names of women who were attached to the palace and the local Assyrian administration. A paper in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies reports the discovery.
"Altogether around 60 names are preserved," said Dr. John MacGinnis from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge. "One or two are actually Assyrian and a few more may belong to other known languages of the period, such as Luwian or Hurrian, but the great majority belong to a previously unidentified language."
(Excerpt) Read more at sci-news.com ...
Detail from the tablet found at Ziyaret Tepe. Inscribed with Cuneiform characters, the tablet consists of a list of women's names, many of which appear to be from a previously unknown language (John MacGinnis)
Evidence for a Peripheral Language in a Neo-Assyrian Tablet
from the Governor’s Palace in Tushan
John MacGinnis
Journal of Near Eastern Studies
Vol. 71, No. 1 (April 2012), pp. 13-20
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/664450
Ancient Tablets Decoded; Shed Light on Assyrian Empire
National Geographic News | December 9, 2009 | Brian Handwerk
Posted on 12/11/2009 4:28:20 AM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2405265/posts
Ebonics??
Only a small part of the tablet has been decoded. It seems to be some sort of warning.
It reads: "B*W*RE*HI*L*RY"
Obambi’s BC.....?
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Renfield. To all, pay no attention to some of what's above this message. |
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Maybe........ maybe not.
Gibberish possibly ?
Looks like a homework assignment at the scurging and flaying school.....testing out on a clay model of the torso.
LOL. I don’t know, I read B*W*R*E O*B*M*A
Roster from an all girls school ?
:’D
Most cuneiform texts can be pronounced, which made it handy for adaptation for use with unrelated languages, even from different families. That’s how the Indo-European languages found recorded in cuneiform in the Hattusas site (non-IE were also found) were cracked by Emil Forrer.
http://www.ancientscripts.com/cuneiform.html
[snip] The term “cuneiform” is very deceptive, in that it tricks people into thinking that it’s some type of writing system. The truth is that cuneiform denotes not one but several kinds of writing systems, including logosyllabic, syllabic, and alphabetic scripts. [/snip]
http://www.ancientscripts.com/akkadian.html
Slave list, probably.
More than one scholar has a *stake* in the outcome. [/rimshot!]
It sais...
“It’s all Bush’s Fault”
The Pre-history of the Armenian People[snip] Shubria, which was still independent, was a thorn in the flesh of the Assyrians. Tactfully avoiding taking sides in its politics between Urartu and Assyria, it provided refuge in its [91] inaccessible mountains to the freemen trying to evade their obligatory community services, the slaves who were fleeing from either empire, and sometimes even to the rebels from among the aristocracy. In order to end this situation (265) and taking advantage of the peace which had been established with the Cimmerians and Urartu, Esarhaddon undertook a decisive campaign against Shubria in 673 B.C., which is very vividly depicted by his court scribe in a detailed war report--"Letter to the god Assur " (266). Besieged in the city of Uppumu, the Shubrians tried in vain to destroy with burning oil the Assyrian siege works and mechanical contrivances; the Assyrian king finally took Uppumu, Qullimeri, and other Shubrian fortresses. The king of Shubria was deposed, the old Hurrian dynasty was brought to an end (267), and the country itself was turned into two Assyrian provinces (Uppumu and Qullimeri). Esarhaddon recruited some of the inhabitants into his own army; others he sent into slavery, giving them to his palace household, to temples, and to private citizens of the privileged cities, while the fugitive Assyrians and Urartians he returned (having fIrst disfigured them) to their masters. Apparently Shubria was then resettled by captives from regions west of the Upper Euphrates. [/snip]
The History of the Armenian Highlands in the Middle Bronze and Early Iron Ages
by I. M. Diakonoff
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