8 ms·

How to write cuneiform

86 points by diodorus 6y ago

hprotagonist 6y ago
Irving Finkel is a gem. His talk “cracking ancient codes” is lovely too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfYYraMgiBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfYYraMgiBA
- grumblepeet 6y ago
  I was telling a friend what a treasure Irving Finkel is, and she turned around and said “He’s my uncle”. England can be a small country sometimes.
- iNerdier 6y ago
  I saw him give a live talk at Boring Conference a few years ago and the way his beard quivers in person is really quite something. Extremely hard to not warm to the man immediately.
- wdb 6y ago
  Love to do that once with him! Don't think I have seen in him in the wild at the museum. I did see Tom Holland (the author) in Member's Room once
bear8642 6y ago
He taught Tom Scott too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOwP0KUlnZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOwP0KUlnZg Found best line was to remember cuneiform is strokes into something soft, not ink as we do now
- Rendello 6y ago
  He also taught Tom to play The Royal Game of Ur [1], a Middle-Eastern precursor to Backgammon that was the Chess of that era in terms of popularity. Irving was the one to decipher the rules from a cuneiform tablet. 1. https://youtu.be/WZskjLq040I https://youtu.be/WZskjLq040I
diego_moita 6y ago
Once you know how to write, you can make Babylonian cookies! https://www.penn.museum/blog/museum/how-to-make-cuneiform-tablet-cookies/ https://www.penn.museum/blog/museum/how-to-make-cuneiform-ta... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/science/cuneiform-tablet-cookies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/science/cuneiform-tablet-...
elbasti 6y ago
I've never understood why cuneiform is so _complicated_. There's only 112 syllables in the chart in the linked blog post... why do some of them require more than 10 "wedges"?
- simplicio 6y ago
  I think the full syllabary is larger. The cuneiform block in unicode is ~1000 characters*. (The article says "instead it uses between 600 and 1,000 characters impressed on clay to spell words", which is kind of ambigious on whether there's 600-1000 characters in the syllabary or 600-1000 per tablet, but 1000 characters would be consistant with the number of unicode codepoints)
  - stan_rogers 6y ago
    It wasn't a strict syllabary. Like Egyptian hieroglyphs, there were logograms as well, and rebus forms were also used (combining logograms representing more than one syllable, along with syllabics). And like hieroglyphics and Central American writing systems, there were several alternativechoices representing the same syllable/consonant. 600–1000 characters is big for a syllabary, but consistent with several early writing systems. Writing ain't natural; it took us some time to figure it out, if it can be said that we've figured it out at all. (We probably won't have a real answer until we somehow manage to freeze and ship a "gold" LTS release of a language.)
    - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
      Chinese is the +- the most written language today, and uses pretty much the same system these convoluted logo-syllabaries did. I don't think there is any sort of evolution or progress story to be mined here.
      - ithkuil 6y ago
        Do you find a good reference for the amount of contemporary written production per language? Chinese is often cited as the language that currently has the most native speakers (followed by spanish and the english); however written production doesn't necessarily have to follow that metric. For example I'm by no means a native English speaker yet my written production in english outweighs my native language production by several orders of magnitude (I mostly write grocery lists in my native language, that's it)
betwixthewires 6y ago
"How to write cuneiform", a 100 word article that ends with " want to learn how to write cuneiform? Click here."
wanderingstan 6y ago
I went down the cuneiform rabbit hole last summer after listening to the excellent “Fall of Civilizations Podcast” episode about Sumer: https://youtu.be/d2lJUOv0hLA https://youtu.be/d2lJUOv0hLA This led to many of Finkel’s videos and the book mentioned in this post. (So far I’m not too impressed with the book, TBH.)
tragomaskhalos 6y ago
I taught myself Linear B one summer, and found remembering all the signs hugely difficult despite its more or less pictographic nature (you don't necessarily know what they are pictures of, but the pictorial nature nevertheless aids memory) - and forgot nearly all of it very quickly. Cuneiform looks at least an order of magnitude more difficult.
wdb 6y ago
As a member I have been missing visiting the British Museum. I have been stuck at home since January last year. I have been enjoying the videos they have been released. Such as the walkthroughs of the exhibits etc. Or the cinema specials they released in previous years. Most can be found on Youtube.
singularity2001 6y ago
The book promoted in the article is highly incomplete and dissatisfying

86 points by diodorus 6y ago

Irving Finkel is a gem. His talk “cracking ancient codes” is lovely too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfYYraMgiBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfYYraMgiBA

grumblepeet 6y ago
I was telling a friend what a treasure Irving Finkel is, and she turned around and said “He’s my uncle”. England can be a small country sometimes.
iNerdier 6y ago
I saw him give a live talk at Boring Conference a few years ago and the way his beard quivers in person is really quite something. Extremely hard to not warm to the man immediately.
wdb 6y ago
Love to do that once with him! Don't think I have seen in him in the wild at the museum. I did see Tom Holland (the author) in Member's Room once

bear8642 6y ago

He taught Tom Scott too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOwP0KUlnZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOwP0KUlnZg Found best line was to remember cuneiform is strokes into something soft, not ink as we do now

Rendello 6y ago
He also taught Tom to play The Royal Game of Ur [1], a Middle-Eastern precursor to Backgammon that was the Chess of that era in terms of popularity. Irving was the one to decipher the rules from a cuneiform tablet. 1. https://youtu.be/WZskjLq040I https://youtu.be/WZskjLq040I

diego_moita 6y ago

Once you know how to write, you can make Babylonian cookies! https://www.penn.museum/blog/museum/how-to-make-cuneiform-tablet-cookies/ https://www.penn.museum/blog/museum/how-to-make-cuneiform-ta... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/science/cuneiform-tablet-cookies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/science/cuneiform-tablet-...

elbasti 6y ago

I've never understood why cuneiform is so _complicated_. There's only 112 syllables in the chart in the linked blog post... why do some of them require more than 10 "wedges"?

simplicio 6y ago
I think the full syllabary is larger. The cuneiform block in unicode is ~1000 characters*. (The article says "instead it uses between 600 and 1,000 characters impressed on clay to spell words", which is kind of ambigious on whether there's 600-1000 characters in the syllabary or 600-1000 per tablet, but 1000 characters would be consistant with the number of unicode codepoints)
- stan_rogers 6y ago
  It wasn't a strict syllabary. Like Egyptian hieroglyphs, there were logograms as well, and rebus forms were also used (combining logograms representing more than one syllable, along with syllabics). And like hieroglyphics and Central American writing systems, there were several alternativechoices representing the same syllable/consonant. 600–1000 characters is big for a syllabary, but consistent with several early writing systems. Writing ain't natural; it took us some time to figure it out, if it can be said that we've figured it out at all. (We probably won't have a real answer until we somehow manage to freeze and ship a "gold" LTS release of a language.)
  - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
    Chinese is the +- the most written language today, and uses pretty much the same system these convoluted logo-syllabaries did. I don't think there is any sort of evolution or progress story to be mined here.
    - ithkuil 6y ago
      Do you find a good reference for the amount of contemporary written production per language? Chinese is often cited as the language that currently has the most native speakers (followed by spanish and the english); however written production doesn't necessarily have to follow that metric. For example I'm by no means a native English speaker yet my written production in english outweighs my native language production by several orders of magnitude (I mostly write grocery lists in my native language, that's it)

betwixthewires 6y ago

"How to write cuneiform", a 100 word article that ends with " want to learn how to write cuneiform? Click here."

wanderingstan 6y ago

I went down the cuneiform rabbit hole last summer after listening to the excellent “Fall of Civilizations Podcast” episode about Sumer: https://youtu.be/d2lJUOv0hLA https://youtu.be/d2lJUOv0hLA This led to many of Finkel’s videos and the book mentioned in this post. (So far I’m not too impressed with the book, TBH.)

tragomaskhalos 6y ago

I taught myself Linear B one summer, and found remembering all the signs hugely difficult despite its more or less pictographic nature (you don't necessarily know what they are pictures of, but the pictorial nature nevertheless aids memory) - and forgot nearly all of it very quickly. Cuneiform looks at least an order of magnitude more difficult.

wdb 6y ago

As a member I have been missing visiting the British Museum. I have been stuck at home since January last year. I have been enjoying the videos they have been released. Such as the walkthroughs of the exhibits etc. Or the cinema specials they released in previous years. Most can be found on Youtube.

singularity2001 6y ago

The book promoted in the article is highly incomplete and dissatisfying