Cuneiform Tablets Research Articles

Cuneiform Tablets Micro-Surveying in an Optimized Photogrammetric Configuration

In the current panorama of 3D digital documentation, the survey of tiny artifacts with micrometric details is strongly influenced by two factors: firstly, the still high cost of the instruments and technologies (active sensors) required to achieve the necessary level of accuracy and resolution; secondly, the needed professional skills for the macro-photogrammetric approach. In this context, this research aims to meet the demand for a digital survey and 3D representation of small objects with complex surfaces and sub-millimeter morphological characteristics using a low-cost configuration (passive sensors) for an image-based approach. The experiments concerned cuneiform tablets, which are challenging due to their morphological and geometrical characteristics. The digital replica of these unique artefacts can be helpful for their study and interpretation and many innovative applications: access and sharing, a collaborative interdisciplinary study among several experts, experimentation with machine learning for automatic character recognition, and linguistic studies. The micrometric surveying system described proves to be an efficient and reliable solution for cuneiform tablet digitization and documentation.

Smuggling Cuneiform Tablets in Aniseed Bags: Profile of a Sale Made by Elias Gejou to the British Museum in 1896

The British Museum archive preserves hundreds of letters sent by antiquities dealers based in Baghdad who regularly wrote to sell archaeological artefacts to the department of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities (the former name of today’s Middle East collection) in the late 19^th century. These documents, largely understudied for the information they contain about the antiquities trade in this period, are invaluable not only because they preserve the stories of the men and women who were involved in this trade, but also because they record the details of their smuggling operations. In their letters to curators, antiquities dealers openly discussed the methods they used to circumvent the Ottoman authorities’ exportation ban of archaeological artefacts adopted in 1884. Although dealers did not shy away from writing about their operations, they did however refrain from disclosing how they passed their collections through customs undetected. Despite this absence, such stories (while rare) do survive. One of the most explicit is preserved in documents related to the British Museum’s purchase of 186 cuneiform tablets from a Baghdad-based broker named Elias Gejou in 1896, who hid the artefacts he sent in bags of aniseed. To present this rare example of a ploy to deceive, this article retraces the events and relationships that enabled Elias Gejou’s smuggling. The aim of this case study is to illustrate how investigating antiquities dealers’ letters in the British Museum archive can enrich our understanding of the manner in which Iraq’s tangible cultural heritage was dispersed across the globe.

The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics

<i>The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics</i>

Envisioning networked provenance data storytelling with American cuneiform collections

Cuneiform tablets remain founding cornerstones of two hundred plus collections in American academic institutions, having been acquired a century or more ago under dynamic ethical norms and global networks. To foster data sharing, this contribution incorporates empirical data from interactive ArcGIS and reusable OpenContext maps to encourage tandem dialogues about using the inscribed works and learning their collecting histories. Such provenance research aids, on their own, initiate the narration of objects’ journeys over time while cultivating the digital inclusion of expert local knowledge relevant to an object biography. The paper annotates several approaches institutions are or might consider using to expand upon current provenance information in ways that encourage visitors’ critical thinking and learning about global journeys, travel archives, and such dispositions as virtual reunification, reconstructions, or restitution made possible by the provenance research.

Astronomical and astrological diagrams from cuneiform sources

While the clay used to write cuneiform tablets is well suited to impressing the wedges of cuneiform signs it is not an ideal medium for the curved lines and detailed marks needed to create illustrative diagrams of the heavens well known in neighboring cultures. Yet, in a selection of examples, cuneiform scholars of astronomy and astrology used clay to sketch out complex diagrams of celestial arrangements and schematic representations of astrological concepts. This article will survey the corpus of astronomical and astrological diagrams preserved from cuneiform sources and summarize key observations about the relation of diagrams to texts and tablets and the representation of theoretical knowledge.

Pottery from Tell Khaiber: A Craft Tradition of the First Sealand Dynasty By Daniel Calderbank (Archaeology of Ancient Iraq 1). Ludlow: Moonrise Press 2021. Pp. xii + 282. £ 35. ISBN 978-1-910169-02-5 (cloth).

<i>Pottery from Tell Khaiber: A Craft Tradition of the First Sealand Dynasty</i> By Daniel Calderbank (Archaeology of Ancient Iraq 1). Ludlow: Moonrise Press 2021. Pp. xii + 282. £ 35. ISBN 978-1-910169-02-5 (cloth).

The Female Fat-tailed Sheep in Palaeography and the Administration of Drehem during the Ur III Period

The Sumerian cuneiform term for the “female fat-tailed sheep”, written as either U8+HUL2 or u8 gukkal, is attested in different administrative documents issued by the Puzriš-Dagan organization (modern Drehem in Iraq) dating to the period between Šulgi 44 and Šu-Suen 6 —mostly from Šulgi 47 to Amar-Suen 8 during the Third Dynasty of Ur (also Ur III, ca. 2112-2004 BCE). This study aims to identify the attestations and frequency of the two variants in palaeography from the Ur III Drehem texts as they appear chronologically, and attempts to figure out the reason why the ancient scribes chose one writing over the other. Four administrative texts categories, mu-kux(DU) “delivery”, i3-dab5 “transfer”, ba-zi “expenditure” and šu ba-ti “receipt”, presented the regular formulas with the specific officials attested in the Ur III Drehem texts recording the female fat-tailed sheep. It will also address why they differentiated their writing according to the documentation by comparing images of their cuneiform tablets. One reason is that the ancient scribes in the Puzriš-Dagan organization were replaced with the enthronement of Amar-Suen. But the more likely interpretation is that there was a written change that happened during the reign of Amar-Suen.

Annotated 3D-Models of Cuneiform Tablets

The dataset¹ consists of 3D scans of one cuneiform tablet from Haft Tappeh Iran and one cuneiform tablet of the Hilprecht Collection as well as 3D annotations on these 3D meshes, including metadata. The 3D annotations were created with the annotation software Annotorious² on 2D renderings and reprojected to the original 3D model. The respective 2D renderings and annotations in 2D are also part of this data publication. The annotations might be used in machine learning tasks for character recognition, linguistic studies, or visualization in Assyriology. We publish these data in different formats and give guidance on how to use them in different usage scenarios and with several software applications. The data serve as the basis for a detailed description, reasoning, and elaboration of a recommendation for the state-of-the-art handling of 3D data in cuneiform research. The data is stored as an archive on Zenodo and may serve as an example for replication by similar 3D scanning.

Digital Assyriology—Advances in Visual Cuneiform Analysis

Cuneiform tablets appertain to the oldest textual artifacts used for more than three millennia and are comparable in amount and relevance to texts written in Latin or ancient Greek. These tablets are typically found in the Middle East and were written by imprinting wedge-shaped impressions into wet clay. There is an increasing demand in the Digital Humanities domain for handwriting recognition, i.e., machine reading of handwritten script, focusing on historic documents. Current practice in text analysis of cuneiform script relies heavily on transliteration and translation, which are incomplete and influenced by the knowledge and experience of the expert that created them. The development of computational tools for cuneiform analysis presents many opportunities. An efficient and accurate sign spotting enables cross-referencing and statistical analyzes that are infeasible to perform manually. Furthermore, a wedge constellation spotting tool, provides experts with a significantly broader base of references to create more accurate and less time consuming transliterations and translations. Yet, cuneiform script has since resisted efforts to computational processing on basis of its basic constituents, its 3D wedge-shaped impressions and their free-form arrangements into signs. In this work, we review the literature on computational processing and recognition in the domain of cuneiform script. We introduce the different heterogeneous sources of cuneiform script, namely, manual ink-on-paper drawings, digital vector graphics drawings, photographs, and 3D scans of tablets. We describe the development of methods, beginning with the first computational classification using a hybrid manual encoding and computational comparison, to the latest methods making use of Generative Adversarial Neural Networks to recognize characters automatically. Finally, we give an overview of applications of these methods that enable quantitative mining in the small, e.g., patterns of wedge constellations, and in the large, e.g., networks of economic activity.

Commentaries from ancient mesopotamia: Texts, genres, and hermeneutics

AbstractAkkadian commentaries from ancient Mesopotamia, written on cuneiform tablets dating to the first millennium BCE, deal with various texts and exhibit a variety of hermeneutical techniques and concerns. These commentaries are connected to the process of canonization, and also provide a glimpse into the scholarly environment in which they were produced.

Was Mesopotamian Tuning Diatonic? A Parsimonious Answer

On the basis of assumptions and conclusions first advanced in 1968 concerning tuning instructions that were originally written down ca. 1800 BCE, Assyriologists have agreed that Mesopotamian tuning was diatonic. Nonetheless, Sam Mirelman (2013) has recently suggested that this consensus view is “uncomfortably familiar and Eurocentric.” As a follow-up to Mirelman’s misgiving, the present report begins by identifying flaws in the reasoning concerning Mesopotamian tuning that was disseminated more than half a century ago and have remained uncontested. The starting point of the present study is information directly recorded in Mesopotamian documents, as opposed to concepts dating from Greek Antiquity and beyond. This information includes the spatial ordering of strings and the relative fundamental frequencies of two pairs of strings on thesammû, a harp or lyre that is explicitly identified in cuneiform tablets, as well as the tuning instructions’ recursive and symmetrical patterning of prescriptions concerning the alterations of this instrument’s strings. At each step, this patterning involves loosening or tightening a string that is three or four strings away from the string that had just been tightened or loosened. Added to these observations are acoustical features of the harmonics produced by plucked strings, and the auditory roughness and smoothness produced by pairs of plucked strings that psychoacoustical studies have established as universally audible. On these bases, one can conclude that Mesopotamian tuning can be interpreted as diatonic in structure without assuming such notions as octave identity, scale degrees, and consonance, all concepts for which there is no known testimony until much later in the history of music theory.

OPTIMIZED CONFIGURATIONS FOR MICRO-PHOTOGRAMMETRIC SURVEYING ADAPTABLE TO MACRO OPTICS AND DIGITAL MICROSCOPE

Abstract. The configuration of new survey approaches for digitizing tiny artefacts is gradually emerging in favour of the related results sharing in new modalities such as 3D printing and or Cultural Heritage open-access datasets. Unfortunately, due to the still high cost of the instrumentations and the time required for specialized operators training, both the digital documentation of small artefacts and the dissemination of 3D data are still a long way from becoming truly mainstream practices.Alternative solutions, often at low cost, could be considered, involving the use of passive sensors for image-based modelling processes, relying on a widespread technology that is now within everyone’s reach. Therefore, we intend to meet the demand for the three-dimensional representation of small objects with complex surfaces and sub-millimetre morphological characteristics by designing several custom accessories that optimize the photogrammetric workflow while maintaining very high metric rigour.In this current work, the authors will focus on researching the most suitable acquisition method and hardware setup to achieve a digital twin of a complex and detailed cuneiform tablet replica using the now widely available on the market digital portable microscopes, able to achieve high magnification. The results were compared with a reference dataset from an active sensor acquisition for the necessary procedure validations.

Shahrezur in the reign of King (Ashor Naser Bal II) (883-859 BC)

The research is under the title (Shahrezur in the reign of King (Ashor Naser Bal II) (883-859 BC). Shahrzour area is one of the important areas in the country of Zamoa. It also means the area was of great economic significance and In his writings, the Assyrian king referred to the military campaigns against the land of Zamoa and the Shahrezur region. This study carries with it all these three famous military campaigns of King. which makes the Shahrezoru region to show a set of facts regarding this historical period and all the political, diplomatic, military and civilizational relations between the Assyrians and the rulers of the Shahrezur region at the time. In order it may divide the research into two sections: The first section was dedicated to the importance of the Shahrezor region of the political and strategic aspects by (Ashurnasirpal II), and why he chose this region and the occupation of its cities and rob the wealth and destruction caused by the Assyrians. It also declares of the reaction of the rulers of that region against the Assyrian authority. The second section devoted to talk about the activities of Ashurnasirpal II, especially in the mountainous areas to the east, where he expanded the Assyrian influence over the mountainous regions and within the recognition of the sovereignty of Assyria by the people that were then outside the Assyrian influence, so he had to carry out his three famous campaigns. As it comes in the texts and Stone cuneiform tablet with inscription of his famous campaigns.

The genetic identity of the earliest human-made hybrid animals, the kungas of Syro-Mesopotamia.

Before the introduction of domestic horses in Mesopotamia in the late third millennium BCE, contemporary cuneiform tablets and seals document intentional breeding of highly valued equids called kungas for use in diplomacy, ceremony, and warfare. Their precise zoological classification, however, has never been conclusively determined. Morphometric analysis of equids uncovered in rich Early Bronze Age burials at Umm el-Marra, Syria, placed them beyond the ranges reported for other known equid species. We sequenced the genomes of one of these ~4500-year-old equids, together with an ~11,000-year-old Syrian wild ass (hemippe) from Göbekli Tepe and two of the last surviving hemippes. We conclude that kungas were F1 hybrids between female domestic donkeys and male hemippes, thus documenting the earliest evidence of hybrid animal breeding.

A Study of The Sumerian Term NIG2-KAS7.. AK (Balanced Account)In The Texts of The Third Millennium B.C

The ancient Iraqis left us, through cuneiform tablets, important archives of records of economic activity, which are a fertile and open field for research and study. Among the most important of these are the accounting records in which the Sumerian term (nig2-kas7..ak) is mentioned and translated by researchers as "balanced account" or "budget accounts". This term has great importance in the context of the interpretation of the economy of ancient Iraq, especially in the texts of the end of the third millennium BC. Therefore, this study came to show its linguistic, administrative and cultural importance.

The Appearance of Pottery Kiln in Northern Mesopotamia in Prehistoric Periods Until Neo-Assyrian Period

The kiln is consisting of two chambers, combustion chamber and baked chamber. The pottery put in isolated baked chamber on the perforated floor which flu the hot gasses from the combustion chamber. Kiln used for baked pottery despite this has used for baked clay staffs such as the figurines, mud-bricks, dulls, toys, seals and cuneiform tablets, then used for melting the glasses and mineral substances. This paper is focusing on the early Kiln in North Mesopotamia from prehistoric periods to the Neo-Assyrian periods as well as focusing on the Architectural and cultural aspects. The northern Mesopotamia is the land of the appearance of the civilization and then let the south to build southern civilization. This paper studied and analysis Architectural material for building, fuel material and the effect of the high and low temperature on the exterior and interior ceramics colors surfaces and the core color of the pots. I hope this paper give the light on the History of the Kiln arts and its architecture development in the Northern Mesopotamai in general and Iraqi Kurdistan particulary.

Time Is Running. Ancient Greek Chronography and the Ancient Near East

AbstractThe article explores the question whether there was a possible dialogue between ancient Greek and Mesopotamian chronography. This is an interesting albeit challenging subject due to the fragmentary preservation of the Greek texts. The idea that cuneiform tablets might have influenced the development of the genre in Greece lingers in the background without having been the subject of detailed discussion. Notably the Neo-Assyrianlimmulist has been suggested as a possible blueprint for the Athenian archon list. In order to examine this topic further, a thorough analysis of ancient Greek chronography starting in the second half of the fifth century BC, when eponymous dates in various literary compositions begin to appear, is required. A close examination of the fragmentary evidence shows how difficult it is to trace the supposed annalistic style in the local histories of Athens (Atthides). In the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the eponymouslimmuofficials served as the chronological backbone, but there remains a huge time gap between the seventh century cuneiform manuscripts and the Athenian archon list from the fifth century. A comparison of the Neo-Assyrian Eponymous Chronicles with the preserved Greek chronographic traditions in Eusebius’ chronicle (fourth century AD) shows that the similarity is mainly confined to an abbreviated style, as the entries clearly point to the different cultural and political settings. Apart from the Neo-Assyrian sources, the Neo- and Late-Babylonian chronicles deserve further attention in the present inquiry. Looking for a connection with ancient Greek chronography in the fifth century, the lack of wholly preserved texts on both sides in the corresponding time constitutes an unsurmountable obstacle. Presenting and scrutinising the textual evidence both for ancient Greek and for Mesopotamian chronography enables an improved understanding of similarities and differences alike. To exemplify this point, Greek and Akkadian temple histories serve as test cases.

شوێنه‌وار و ناوی شاره‌ كۆنه‌كانی ژێر شاری سلێمانی له‌به‌ر ڕۆشنایی تۆماره‌ مێخی و كلاسیكی و به‌ڵگه‌ شوێنه‌وارییه‌كاندا

This paper deals with the ancient settlements in the plain where the city of Sulaimani found in 1874 A.D. In his book (Babylonian Problems) Lane (1923) proposes that modern Sulaimani built on the long-lost city of Celonae that was mentioned by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus (1st century A.D.) in his book "Histories of Alexander the Great.” Also, the Kurdish historian Amin Zeki in his book (The History of Sulaimani)1951, agrees with Lane, and he suggests that the name of modern Sulaimani’s name perhaps derived from the same name of Celonae. Many other historians and archaeologists repeat the same identification. In this paper, we investigated this identification, and we found that the city of Celonae was mentioned only once by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus (1st century A.D.) in his book "Histories of Alexander the Great,” he refers to the journey of Alexander the Great from Susa to Ekbatana, according to Rufus, on his way, Alexander camped in Celonae. We suggest a new identification for the Celonae Town in the northern edges of Garmian district at the foot or on the top of one of the mountains of the modern Qaradagh ranges, because, Alexander took the road from Susa to the north then east crossing the city of Sittake on the Tigris near Celucia/al-Madain, then moving to other cities along the road to the direction of the north-east, camped in Celonae, then moved to the east and reached Bagastana (Behistun) and after wards to Ecbatana, the capital of the Median Empire in (modern Hamadan). We found also, that the Assyrian royal inscriptions refer to a mountain called Siluna, the Assyrian king Adad-Narari III (811-783 B.C.) in his campaign on Namri and Media, after crossing the Lower Zab toward the east, first he mentions the mountain Siluna, where the sun rises, then he occupied Namri and crossed the other lands in the east to reach Media, and since Namri was the land of the Kassites (in the post-Kassite period) located in the area of Sangaw-Garmian-Qaradagh-Bamo ranges, we can conclude that the mountain Siluna and the city Celonae were located in the same place somewhere in Qaradagh ranges. In the base of the above-mentioned evidence, we can reject the previous identification of Celonai with modern Sulaimani. On the other hand, in this paper we discussed other identifications of modern Sulaimani with ancient cities and towns mentioned in the cuneiform records, for instance, Radner (2017), suggests that the Zamuan capital city of Arrakdi of the Lullubu people located under modern Sulaimani, but this is not a proper identification, because the city of Arrakdi was mentioned in the cuneiform records three times, and in all records they refer to the point that the city located beyond a roughed mountain, the Annals of Ashurnasirpal II refers that the city located at the foot of the roughed mountain Lara, and this mountain should be modern Lare mountain in the east of Shabazher district far east from modern Sulaimani. Also, the cuneiform tablet that was discovered in Sitak in Sharbazher district and that tablet also refers to Arrakdi. Also, we found that Spiser linked the village of Uluba (Ulubulagh) now it is a district in the southern east of Sulaimani, with the Lullubian City of Lagalaga, this identification only based on the similarities between the two toponyms. On the other hand, Abdulraqeeb Yusuf, suggests that the old village of Daragha, which is now a district in the eastern part of Sulaimani derived from the Zamuan city Dagara of the Lullubies, this identification also not appropriate one, because the village and district named after the name of a nobleman called Mr. Dara Agha, and there is no archaeological ruin in this district as well. The city of Sulaimani was built on an area where a huge archaeological Gird/Tell existed, the Babanian princes built their palace on this artificial hill and the administrative buildings to the east of it, when they dug for the foundations, they discovered coins, a stone with unknown script, and many jars, some of them big jars contained human skulls. In 2005, when the modern building Kaso Mall constructed on the northwest of the hill, we found two seals date back to Jamdet-Naser = Nineveh V period, and Ubaid potsherds, and some bull skulls, their horns cut with a sharp instrument. This evidence indicate that the city was built on a settlement date back to the 5th-4th millennium B.C. Other archaeological discoveries in Girdi Kunara and Girdi De Kon in the western part of the city at the bank of Qiliasan and Tanjero rivers, in Kunara many cuneiform tablets discovered there, we can link these sites also with the Lullubies in the third &amp; second millennium B.C.

A Bibliography of Cuneiform Tablet Editions in United States Colleges and Universities through 2020

This dataset contains bibliographic data of publications containing scholarly editions in any language of cuneiform tablets in small collections of cuneiform objects (typically 5–20 objects) in United States colleges and universities, current through 2020. These collections include a variety of ancient text forms, including but not limited to economic documents, letters, cylinder seals, and large reliefs. The dataset is stored on the JOHD Dataverse Repository. The data was compiled as part of a larger project to map the collections of cuneiform in the United States for the purposes of increasing access. Reuse potential includes its use as a reference tool for the history of Assyriology, for producing scholarship around the objects in these collections, for historical bibliometric data, and for the reconstruction of ancient cuneiform corpora throughout the United States.

“Counsels of Wisdom: An ancient Babylonian instruction for scribal students”

AbstractThis article provides a historical and cultural contextualization of the Babylonian poem entitled “Counsels of Wisdom,” an example of the ancient “instruction” genre also attested in Egyptian and Biblical literature. After a brief description of the poem's textual basis and reconstruction from cuneiform tablets, the article offers an interpretation of the poem within the context of Babylonian scribal curricula. Specifically, the article argues “Counsels of Wisdom” was a pedagogical text that school masters used to instill important personal and professional values in future scribes during their training. In the course of developing this interpretation, the article also presents an introductory literary treatment of “Counsels of Wisdom,” including discussions of the poem's genre, structure, content, poetics, and ethical and religious perspectives.