Cuneiform wasn't just a form of writing prevalent in the last millennia BCE. The last datable cuneiform tablet is from 75 CE, during the reign of Vespasian (for a comparison). Also, I really love the Penn Museum's "Write Your Name in Cuneiform" inscriber. We are doing it in class tomorrow! 🔼
That's right, and it continues through today, too. I always show these examples when talking about the reception of cuneiform in Iraq:
My kid made me a cuneiform tablet that reads, "Arby's: we have the meat" when they were in 6th grade
frustrating; didn't work for me. seems whatever generates the images is down at the moment.
Woah
If anyone hasn’t read it, I can recommend Amanda Podany’s Weavers, Scribes, and Kings, containing microhistories from the thousands of years of cuneiform tablets
This is great! Thanks so much for sharing it!!
Cc @inefable20.bsky.social te mandé esto ya?
Qué rule!!!! Creo que nunca te conté esto: como bien sabes fui un niño que NO DEJABA DE DAR POR EL CULO 24/7, pues con tres años (no habían nacido ni mis hermanas), mi padre me enseñó a escribir en cuneiforme.
Jajajajaja babilonio, sumerio,...? Te he contado lo del examen de acadio de mi hermana? Tenemos que hablar de esto!
Seguro que Acadio era otro tipo feo que la cortejaba. "Moza, que tengo cincel pa sumerio y hasta godo".
A mi hermana? No sé si conviene mencionar ese tema aquí donde habita alguno de sus ex pretendientes...
Me refiero a tu otra hermana. La que no tiene pretendientes por aquí.
Tengo una hermana que no conozco?!
Now I want to make a cuneiform chop to sign my prints
Also, I only know Latin and Greek, so please don't get your translation tattooed on your body until you check it with an actual expert. I will not be responsible if this actually just translates to "Learn some damn Sumerian."
One day @drewdaniel.bsky.social may share how I coached him through getting a partly broken line from Gilgamesh reliably tatted (I ended up escalating it to Sophus Helle, the text's translator)
I mean, we are reading from his book tomorrow! What a great team effort.
I consulted a trifecta of experts before getting my tattoo! @nabalkattu.bsky.social Sophus Helle AND Paul Delnero were all in the mix before I walked into that tattoo parlor with design in hand- and I left some space if another fragment is found, too!
Oh hell yeah.
Proud to be part of the team, and love that you left a margin!
😂
Hmmm I don't think @moudhy.bsky.social is using this platform much at the moment but I'll cc her anyway because I think her expert opinion is needed here. I'm not even sure that that website does. Is it going for phonetic syllables of the name that's been entered?
It is I believe translating just the monogram
Ah, gotcha
Shades of David Attenborough's scorpion tattoo missing a couple of legs!
Reading about Sumerian cuneiform has given me so much hope over the last decade... Stories can be literally buried in the sand... And the. Be rediscovered to retell.
It did not give me what I had hoped for my name, Barley Bushel Su-en.
I still have a little clay thingy of my name in cuneiform from when a colleague taught a class on ancient writing. What I remember most about the experience is how viciously difficult it was for a lefty. It was a “how on earth?!” experience on the order of failing to learn to knit.
I have never thought of this! How very sinister of them. But seriously, it sucks how right handed things have always been.
I’m a weird lefty in that I have zero issues with right-handed fountain pens or scissors etc, so it was the first time that I couldn’t figure out the mechanics of a writing implement, and I got so, so frustrated.
But yeah, it is fascinating that impressions like that can only be made by right-handed people, at least intuitively. I bet one could figure it out with a lot of clay and patience and maybe a modified implement, but I’m still against it on lefty dignity grounds.
Have you read @stevenellis.bsky.social 's article? It is one of my favs of all time: "Pes Dexter. Superstition and the State in the Shaping of. Shopfronts and Street Activity in the Roman World" archive.org/details/rome...
No, but I will now. Thank you!
