Cuneiform Characters Research Articles

Fragmented-cuneiform-based convolutional neural network for cuneiform character recognition

Cuneiform has been a widely used writing system in one of the human history phases. Although there are millions of tablets, have been excavated today, only around 100,000 tablets have been read. The difficulty in translating also increased if the tablet has damaged areas resulting in some of its characters become fragmented and hard to read. This paper investigates the possibility of reading fragmented cuneiform characters from Noto Sans Cuneiform font based on convolutional neural network (CNN). The dataset is built on extracted 921 characters from the font. These characters are then intentionally being damaged with specific patterns, resulting set of fragmented characters ready to be trained. The model produced by this training phase then being used to read the unseen fragmented pattern of cuneiform sets. The model also being tested for reading normal characters set. From the simulation, 83.86% accuracy of reading fragmented characters are obtained. Interestingly, 96.42% accuracy is obtained while the model is being tested for reading normal characters.

Cuneiform symbols recognition by support vector machine (SVM)

Cuneiform character recognition represents a complex problem in pattern recognition as result of problems that related to style of this type of writing and the diversity of its features according to distortion and shadows problems. This research proves that polygon approximation method is an optimal feature extra action method , which has been adopted for recognition task compeer with elliptic Fourier descriptor, according to the achieved high accuracy recognition results after applying multiple classes of support vector machine classifier along with depending on its discriminate functions .This work is applied by using two Data set , the first one contains 320 images of cuneiform symbols patterns for evaluate the optimal feature extraction method. The second contains 240 images of cuneiform characters to evaluate the recognition system, agents training dataset consists of 2D four triangular patterns.

Firing temperature determination and thermoluminescence dating of a brick with cuneiform characters found in the ruins of Ancient Babylon

Este artigo tem por objetivo estudar um tijolo com inscrições em caracteres cuneiformes cujas sentenças estão praticamente completas. Estudos tipológicos correspondentes aos relatos históricos sugerem que o tijolo foi manufaturado no século VI a.C., durante a dinastia de Nabucodonosor II, grande monarca da Babilônia. A amostra foi estudada através da difração de raios X (DRX), ressonância paramagnética de elétron (RPE), termoluminescência (TL) e técnicas de análise por ativação instrumental com nêutrons (AAIN). Os resultados demonstraram que o tijolo tem 2350 anos de idade (± 40) e queima menor que 400o C.

Medicine in ancient Mesopotamia--part 1

The present work summarizes the more elucidating aspects on the foundations and the practice of the medicine in Antique Mesopotamia, since the invention of the writing, more than 5000 thousand years ago, and the beginning of our era. The first part of the article includes a brief perspective about the political and social evolution that characterized those archaic civilizations, as well as the inventions and knowledge further used by the following Humanity's generations. Most of what is known on the subject, as well as the history and political-social events that occurred in the region during that remote epoch, resulted of the laborious decoding of about half a million small clay plates or fragments with text engravings in cuneiform characters that were discovered since the middle of the XIX century in the ruins of the main cities of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires. The second part embraces exclusively the main characteristics of the medicine in Ancient Mesopotamia, in its main facets: concept of disease, healers and practice. The disease was considered a divine punishment or resultant from a malign influence. In that base, the medicine began by being preventive, by the use of appropriate amulets, or by offerings or sacrifices intending to pacify those malign forces. The treatment of the generality of the diseases privileged the expulsion of those spirits and malign influences from the patient body, purifying it, which was done by the specific intervention of an ãshipu (clergyman-exorcist); not having results, the treatment was continued by the asû (practical healer) that appealed to a group of physical manipulations, limited surgical acts and the administration or application of prescriptions, resultants of the mixture of organic and inorganic substances. In case of failing, the patients (as well as individuals or rein leaders) could fall back upon a priest diviner (bârû) who, by examination of the organs of an animal especially sacrificed for the effect, would give a final decision about the disease or the future. Separated this more occult facet, nourished in religious faiths and in the magic, the medicine of Ancient Mesopotamia included rational knowledge, certainly as the result of a systematic patients observation and semiotic interpretation. From those observations and knowledge referred to the Sumerian period, carefully logged, refined and transmitted to the following generations, a valuable collection of texts was built with the description of symptoms, signs, diagnosis and prognostic of the most common diseases, still identifiable in the present.

La trace et l'écriture

Can writing, in the strictest sense of the word, be considered as a trace ? It seems obvious that any graphic sign is a mark left by a hand or by any tool guided by it. The form of the world's different handwritings, from cuneiform characters to latin letters, betrays the human gesture and the perception he had of the things of the world. More precious still, handwriting holds a trace of speech and of the various intentions Man had when writing it. Trace of a gesture or a speech, handwriting is often the only evidence left of our ancestors' thoughts.

Erratum: The Origins of Script

In Robert K. Englund's review of Before Writing by Denise Schmandt-Besserat (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1992) in the 11 June issue (p. 1670), two cuneiform characters in columns 1 and 2 on page 1671 were misrepresented. The correct characters are as follows. [See figure in the PDF file]

Security of E-Mail

In Robert K. Englund's review of Before Writing by Denise Schmandt-Besserat (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1992) in the 11 June issue (p. 1670), two cuneiform characters in columns 1 and 2 on page 1671 were misrepresented. The correct characters are as follows.

The most ancient scripts of Iran: The current situation

Abstract Between the second half of the fourth millennium B.C. and the end of the third, three writing systems succeeded one another at Susa and on the Iranian Plateau. Around 3200 B.C. clay bullae and tablets attest the use of an exclusively numerical notation, at a time when relations between Susa and Mesopotamia were extremely close. From around 3100 until about 2700 B.C., proto‐Elamite writing, probably invented on the Plateau, was employed for economic purposes. At first ideographic, this script, as yet undeciphered, became increasingly syllabic, like the Linear Elamite of more than half a millennium later. At the end of the third millennium, at a time when the scribes of Susa had already adopted the Mesopotamian cuneiform characters, an Elamite invader, PUZUR‐Insusinak, imposed the linear script, derived from proto‐Elamite signs. Despite recent efforts, in particular those of W. Hinz and P. Meriggi, these linear inscriptions remain largely incomprehensible. Only the discovery of new inscriptions may...

A Hittite Text on the Duties of Priests and Temple Servants

THE DOCUMENT presented below in transliteration and translation exists in six copies all published in cuneiform characters by Ehelolf. The principal text (here designated A) is KUB 13. 4; it lacks about a dozen lines at the top of Col. 1, and seven at the top of Col. 2, and its surface is considerably defaced. My line numbering (given in bold-face type) follows that given by Ehelolf for this text, except in Col. 2, where it was necessary to include the seven additional lines. These lines are supplied by B KUB 13. 5, which preserves parts of about 95 lines. CKUB 13. 6 contains some 40 complete or nearly complete lines and a considerable number of line ends. G KUB 13. 17 is briefer. Even more fragmentary are D = KUB 13. 18, and E = KUB 13. 19. F KUB 26. 31 is an additional fragment published by Gbtze. In this paper I give a composite transliterated text with complete critical apparatus, and with such supplements as I can suggest. The suggested translation necessarily disregards several passages from which only isolated words are preserved. The commentary is confined almost entirely to questions of grammar and interpretation that could not be avoided. The abbreviations are those employed in my Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language; HG designates this grammar itself.

More Light on the Canaanite Epic of Aleyân Baal and Môt

Just a year ago we published an article in the BULLETIN (No. 46, April, 1932) entitled New Light on Early Canaanite Language and Literature, in which we described the extraordinary discoveries being made by Schaeffer and Chenet at Ras esh-Shamrah on the coast of northern Syria. As our readers will recall, the excavations conducted here by the French yielded archamological discoveries of the greatest significance, including clay tablets inscribed with alphabetic cuneiform characters, of a type hitherto entirely unknown. This mysterious script was brilliantly deciphered by a German and two French scholars, H. Bauer, P. Dhorme, and Ch. Virolleaud, during the year 1930-1. Early in 1931 Virolleaud published part of a great Canaanite epic, devoted to the conflict between

XXVIII. A Cuneiform Tablet from Boghaz Keui with Docket in Hittite Hieroglyphs

Among the fragmentary tablets from Boghaz Keui which are in my possession is one with a docket attached to it in Hittite hieroglyphs (No. I). It is the first evidence yet discovered of the contemporaneity of the hieroglyphs and cuneiform, and I therefore give a facsimile of it in spite of its very fragmentary nature. The cuneiform characters were, as usual, impressed upon the clay prior to its being baked in the kiln; the docket was cut after the clay had been baked. As will be seen, the tablet is dated in the reign of Arnuwandas, the last king of the Hittite empire.

On Some Alleged Indo-European Languages in Cuneiform Character

On Some Alleged Indo-European Languages in Cuneiform Character

The Hittites, with Special Reference to Very Recent Discoveries 1

I. OF late much has been said concerning the Hittites, and, as might be expected in relation to such a subject, there have been fanciful hypotheses and wild vagaries, repugnant alike to the scientific method and the scientific spirit. But most persons, one would suppose, who have given serious attention to the subject, must have become convinced that there is a great vacancy in that map of the past which ancient history presents. Mighty kings, dynasties enduring, it may be, through thousands of years, great peoples who had made no slight advance in civilization, have passed away without leaving any chronicle equal even to those which were extant concerning Egypt and Assyria before the decipherment of the hieroglyphics and the cuneiform characters. The recent change in public opinion concerning the Hittites is not due merely to the discovery of monuments and inscriptions in various parts of Asia Minor: a Large proportion of these had been known to exist for a considerable time, some for a very long time. It must be referred rather to the recognition of an identity or similarity of character in these monuments and inscriptions. And thus has arisen the idea of an empire stretching from the Euphrates to the Ægean Sea. It is, however, doubtful whether—if we use the word “empire” in such a sense as we employ it when we speak, for example, of the Empire of Russia or the Empire of China—there is any ground for believing that a Hittite Empire ever existed. Most likely there were in Asia Minor many States, or even single cities, which were usually to a great extent independent, and the peoples of which were not, perhaps, altogether homogeneous in race, but which, under pressure of the necessities of war, formed a federation. This view accords with the passages in the First and Second Books of Kings which speak of the “kings of the Hittites” (2 Kings, vii. 6) and of “all the kings of the Hittites” for whom Solomon's merchants brought up out of Egypt chariots and horses (i Kings, x. 28, 29). The testimony of these passages in relation to the greatness of the Hittite peoples has been till recently but little regarded.

Art. XXIII.—The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Van, deciphered and translated

It is now more than half a century ago that the existence of inscriptions written in the Cuneiform character, and found in different parts of Armenia, first became known. The French Professor, Saint-Martin, in 1823, gave an account in theJournal Asiatiqueof the antiquities of Van, and drew attention to the fact that the Armenian historian, Moses of Khorene, has described them in such detail as to make it probable he had seen them with his own eyes. In the curious romance, compiled partly from the Old Testament, partly from the legends of Greek writers, partly from the names of localities, which was made to take the place of the forgotten early history of Armenia, these monuments were ascribed to Semiramis, to whom Van was imagined to owe its foundation. Saint-Martin concluded that some of them, at any rate, must still be in existence, and at his instigation, therefore, a young scholar from Hesse, Prof. Fr. Ed. Schulz, was sent by the French Government to Armenia, in 1826, in order to examine them. In 1828, accordingly, Van and its neighbourhood were thoroughly explored by Schulz, who succeeded in discovering and copying no less than forty-two Cuneiform inscriptions. Considering his utter ignorance of both the language and the character, the accuracy of his copies is really wonderful. They were published in theJournal Asiatique(3rd ser. vol. ix. No. 52) in 1840, but the unfortunate discoverer never returned home, having been murdered in 1829 by a Kurdish chief, along with several officers of the Shah of Persia. His papers were subsequently recovered from the Prince of Julamerk.

Supplementary Note sent from Baghdad, 25th August, and received in London, 8th October, 1846

Having been engaged in considering the question of aspiration, and having had the advantage at the same time of consulting Professor Lassen's acute but incomplete remarks upon the old Persian alphabet, I have been induced to adopt a somewhat different classification of the Cuneiform characters from that which is given in the preceding chapter. The peculiarity of Cuneiform writing, which I have long suspected, but only recently verified, and upon which depend the rectifications now proposed, consists in the constant occurrence of compound vowel articulations in the interior of words, of which, owing to the inherence of the a in the preceding consonant, the second element only is expressed. I have satisfied myself, indeed, that the groupes ai and au are as common in the language of the inscriptions as the diphthongs é and o in Sanskrit, (to which, be it observed, the said groupes phonetically and grammatically correspond,) and I have further remarked, that although in such Cuneiform groupes the vowel a is unexpressed, its existence may usually be detected by the form of the preceding consonant; an explanation being thus afforded of many of the supposed anomalies in the organization of the alphabet, and a very important step being gained in reducing it to simplicity and order.