How you can Write in Cuneiform, the Oldest Writing System within the World: A Brief Introduction

Educate­ing little one vis­i­tors tips on how to write their names utilizing an unfa­mil­iar or vintage alpha­guess is a favourite activ­i­ty of muse­um edu­ca­tors, however Dr. Irv­ing Finkel, a cuneiform skilled who spe­cial­izes in historical Mesopotami­an med­i­cine and magazine­ic, has grander designs.

His make use of­er, the British Muse­um, has over 130,000 tablets span­ning Mesopotamia’s Ear­ly Dynas­tic peri­od to the Neo-Child­lon­ian Empire “simply wait­ing for younger schol­ars to return commit them­selves to (the) monk­ish work” of deci­pher­ing them.

Writ­ing one’s title would possibly effectively show to be a gate­means, and Dr. Finkel has a vest­ed inter­est in lin­ing up some new recruits.

The museum’s Depart­ment of the Mid­dle East has an open entry pol­i­cy, with a classroom the place researchers can stand up shut and per­son­al with an unlimited col­lec­tion of cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia and sur­spherical­ing areas.

However let’s not put the ox earlier than the cart.

As the acute­ly per­son­in a position Dr. Finkel exhibits Matt Grey and Tom Scott of Matt and Tom’s Park Bench, above, cuneiform con­sists of three parts—upright, hor­i­zon­tal and diagonal—made by press­ing the sting of a reed sty­lus, or pop­si­cle stick when you pre­fer, right into a clay pill.

The mechan­i­cal course of appears honest­ly simple to get the hold of, however mas­ter­ing the previous­est writ­ing sys­tem on the earth will take you round six years of ded­i­cat­ed examine. Like Japan’s kan­ji alpha­guess, the previous­est writ­ing sys­tem on the earth is syl­lab­ic. Prop­er­ly writ­ten out, these syl­la­bles be a part of up right into a circulate­ing cal­lig­ra­phy that your aver­age, edu­cat­ed Child­lon­ian would have the ability to learn at a look.

Even when you’ve got no plans to rus­tle up a pop­si­cle stick and a few Play-Doh, it’s value stick­ing with the video to the tip to listen to Dr. Finkel inform how an opportunity encounter with some nat­u­ral­ly happen­ring cuneiform impressed him to write down a hor­ror nov­el, which is now avail­in a position for pur­chase, fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful Kick­starter cam­paign.

Start your cuneiform stud­ies with Irv­ing Finkel’s Cuneiform: Historic Scripts.

Word: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this publish appeared on our web site in 2018.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch a 4000-12 months Outdated Child­lon­ian Recipe for Stew, Discovered on a Cuneiform Pill, Get Cooked by Researchers from Yale & Har­vard

Hear The Epic of Gil­gamesh Learn in its Orig­i­nal Historic Lan­guage, Akka­di­an

Study Historic Greek in 64 Free Classes: A Free On-line Course from Bran­deis & Har­vard

Hear the “Seik­i­los Epi­taph,” the Outdated­est Com­plete Track within the World: An Inspir­ing Tune from 100 BC

Hear What the Lan­guage Spo­ken by Our Ances­tors 6,000 Years In the past Would possibly Have Sound­ed Like: A Recon­struc­tion of the Professional­to-Indo-Euro­pean Lan­guage

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an writer, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist in NYC.