Cuneiform
As cuneiform script is called from a 34th century BC until at least the 1st century AD, used writing system that was used in the Middle East to write multiple languages. It evolved from an initial picture writing to a syllabary, from a phonetic consonantal script, the Ugaritic script was developed, until it was finally (eg the Phoenician script) displaced by other forms of writing and fell into oblivion. Typical carrier text of cuneiform clay tablets are described by the impressions of a writing pen in the still soft clay. It has the name of its basic elements: horizontal, vertical and slanted wedges. The cuneiform developed by the Sumerians, later used by many peoples of the ancient East ( Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, Persians, and others). Last cuneiform texts were written in the Seleucid period.
History and distribution
The Sumerian cuneiform is next to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, the oldest known writing today. It came about around 3300 BC in Sumer in Mesopotamia and was able to maintain its supremacy until about 1800 BC. First, the Sumerian cuneiform writing began as a pictographic script, consisting of around 900 pictograms and ideograms, which were carved in clay.
In Kisch limestone tablets were the oldest character found. There were highly simplified representations about a head, a Dreschhammers, an arrow, a pitcher, a foot. Three mountain peaks stood for mountains. Many words arose - like today at the Chinese characters - by simply writing such pictograms. "Weeping " was expressed with the characters " eye " and "water ", " princess " returned from the drawings "woman" and " jewelry ". " Penalties " was expressed by "stock " and " meat ". " Mountains" and " woman " returned " Bergweib " which meant slave, because the Sumerians probably worried slaves from the surrounding hill tribes. "Locust " was printed as pictogram for " grasshopper ", but also as an ideogram for " destruction ". It was probably through swarms of locusts eroded fields and gardens in front of the eye. A "star" stood as a pictogram for "star", as ideogram for " heaven" ( the Sumerian "on") and "God " (Sumerian: " dingir "). A dinner dish was for food. A head and a dinner dish stands for " eat ". But this pictogram font did not stop at the simple and complex character meanings are. The pictogram of a river stood for " water " - Sumerian "a" -, but when the sound "a" also meant "in". Instead here to invent a new character for " in ", the Sumerians used the pictogram "river" in its sound meaning " a" is "in". Because of this rapid method has been used more and more often, eventually outweighed the phonetic meaning of the characters. Other characters come from Zählsteinen and were abstract from the beginning, such as the cross for sheep.
Your typical cuneiform received this font only around the year 2700 BC, when the old Sumerian centers of power Uruk, Ur and Lagash anwuchsen enormously and their central temple bureaucracies developed an increased writing requirements, which called for a rationalization of the writing process. Almost as revolutionary, the new technique are referred to, in a blunt stylus wedges were pressed into the still soft clay, which was then dried or fired.
If the new cuneiform first used by the Sumerians, they quickly gained at the other civilized nations of the ancient Near East in popularity.
Around the year 2350 BC penetrated the Semitic people of the Akkadians by Sumer, took over control of the Sumerian city-states, while their writing and culture. Under the Akkadian dynasty of Sargon of Akkad is their territory and thus language, culture and writing spread further.
Around the same time came the knowledge of cuneiform to Syria in the kingdom of Ebla, where it was used for the native Semitic language, the Eblaitische.
As early as 2500 BC triggered the cuneiform in the neighboring kingdom of Elam (today's Iran) is written there proto- Elamite linear script from where it was used until the Hellenistic period.
Also, the Hittites, the Indo-European language is very different from the Semitic ethnic Akkadian, adapted the cuneiform. The Hittites initially replaced their own different type icons by the cuneiform. The spread of cuneiform in the north went up by Urartu (northeast Turkey and Armenia) with Urartian as the national language and in the south to Palestine with Canaanite as the dominant language. The evolved form of cuneiform writing was so adaptable in the use of symbols as phonetic characters that the font could be used in the same way to the languages of the Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians.
As Hammurabi 1792 BC ascended the Babylonian throne, Mesopotamia consisted only of a number of rival city-states. However, he succeeded because of his campaigns to extend the dominion of Babylon to all of Mesopotamia and spread the language and culture of his realm far beyond the country 's borders.
With the decline of the Babylonian and the rise of the Assyrian Empire, the writing and the culture of Mesopotamia spread to the 7th century BC by Babylonia and Assyria, Palestine to Egypt. In this epoch, the cuneiform developed to its final form further. From the 8th century BC gradually penetrated new writing systems, such as the Phoenician or Greek phonetics, according to Asia Minor, the displaced gradually cuneiform writing, to their knowledge eventually went completely lost.
A special form of cuneiform, the wedge Persian typeface indicates the beginning of the reign of Darius I in 521 BC, the Persians had no own writing. The administrative language of the Persian Empire was Elamite, next was placed in reliefs always a translation in Babylonian. Darius I ordered the creation of a separate Persian script ( Old Persian ). The Persian cuneiform script was much simpler structure ( 34 characters ) as the cuneiform writings of the Elamites (approximately 200 characters) and Babylonians (approximately 600 characters) and had a word separator for readability.
The Persian cuneiform script was supplanted later ( 400 BC ) by the introduction of Aramaic. The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical table, dates from the year 75 AD
Decryption and translation of cuneiform
The Italian Pietro della Valle in 1621 had several cuneiform characters of a brick from Persepolis copied in a letter for the first time properly and in his travelogue thought that these letters " are written on our way from the lincke the right hand ". The decoding of this simplified Persian cuneiform began on the basis of copies of inscriptions of the Orient researcher Carsten Niebuhr had also made in 1765 at Persepolis. Their publication was the groundbreaking combinations of the German philologist Georg Friedrich Grotefend (Göttingen) is based. Without that he would have knowledge of written and spoken language, but above all a parallel version of the text in other languages , succeeded him in the summer of 1802 within a few weeks to decipher almost a third of the characters inventory. This was only possible, however, because it was a fairly monotonous material, which consisted largely of royal names with filiation and titulary, could be applied to the historical knowledge. Accordingly Grotefend remained the - few - factual parts of these inscriptions closed.
Progress arose initially by researching related languages ( Avestan and Sanskrit ), especially by the Norwegian philologist Christian Lassen. The insights in this area could be applied to Persian inscriptions. Here, too, helped name - this time international name - on. These came mainly but further material as it could provide ( 1846/47 and 1851 ) of the Behistun inscription of the British officer Henry Rawlinson Creswicke with the copying ( 1835-1837 ) and publication. Again there were names, by their knowledge of the missing characters could be developed.
In the inscription on the rock of Behistun is a Trilingue. The inscription of Behistun was synonymous for the decipherment of cuneiform with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone for the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. After the decipherment of the Persian text, the way was clear to decipher even the more complex cuneiform inscriptions in the languages of Elam and Babylon.
Through the excavations of Paul -Émile Botta Khorsabad in the Louvre and by Austen Layard at Nimrud, Kuyunjik ( Nineveh), Kalah Schergat ( Assyria ) were presented to the British Museum in front of numerous inscriptions. So it is not surprising that in France and England was considerable interest in deciphering. 1857 sent Edwin Norris, the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society in London, a recently discovered inscription from the reign of the Assyrian king Tiglath- pileser I. Dr. Edward Hincks, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Julius Oppert, who was born in Germany, and the young British orientalist William Henry Fox Talbot. The translations were these seals were examined by a commission found to comply in all main points and in 1857 published (" An inscription of Tiglath Pileser, King of Assyria, as translated by Rawlinson, Talbot, Dr. Hincks, and Oppert "). The decipherment of Akkadian cuneiform was now a fait accompli ( facts ).
Beginning of the 20th century deciphered Bedřich Hrozný the written language of the Hittites, and laid foundations for the study of their language and history.
Records
The early Sumerian writing culture was at first only the temple administration are available which she understood to use as an instrument of state control of the tax system and administration. It took a long time until the cuneiform script of the entire functional spectrum could seize, featuring the use of writing of ancient civilizations. Only after the religious and political documents or private purchase agreements was scientific writings and entertaining literature. Among the surviving texts include royal inscriptions, epics, myths, hymns, divination spells and Lamentations, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest surviving seals of mankind, and the most famous literary work Altbabylons.
With the adaptation of cuneiform by other ancient Near Eastern civilizations, a first exchange of letters, a forerunner of today's postal service, the sent clay tablets were provided with protective covers made of baked clay was between peoples.
It was formed out of the privileged status of the writer who had the reputation of an aristocrat and because of its direct access to important information about the powerful part was as the most illiterate rulers. Scribal schools were established to identify discipline and rigor is also documented on the basis of received homework.
Development of writing
The development history of the cuneiform settled, understand on clay tablets with transcripts, which Temple students made their masters. Initially, it was at the characters to pictographs to simplified pictorial representations of an object or being. For example, was the stylized star for "star", "God" and "heaven". Later, the cuneiform developed further ideographs that represented complex thought processes. Then stood example of stylized star for "above".
From about 2900 BC, the pictographs more and more lost its former function and its original reference. Now a single character could, depending on the context of meaning have different meanings. In the subsequent developing step, a significance was only associated with one character. From 1500 originally pictograms 600 characters that were used regularly developed so. These characters were related with time more and more on the phonetics of spoken words. It originated rebus ( Rebus ) in which an icon was no longer for the displayed object, but for a similar- word. Took Similar to the hieroglyphs at the cuneiform over long periods of time a phonetization the characters. Thus, a clear reading was possible, the writer Determinative had to introduce in order to classify the characters after object meaning and significance can sound. In the course of the development of writing, the characters became more complex, for example, by repetition of the same forms.
Structure and transliteration
The Babylonian cuneiform, as it was needed for the Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite and many other languages ( the Ugaritic cuneiform represents an alphabet and must be excluded here ) essentially has logograms, phonograms and determinative. Logograms stand for a word derived at least in some cases, from an image of the represented object from and are often identical for multiple languages. Logograms are transliterated in modern Assyriology with their Sumerian phonetic value. The sign lú, originally the image of a person who is, for example, the Sumerian word / lu / " man ". It can also use in Akkadian texts, where it / awilum / read is ( as the Akkadian word for " man " ), or in Hittite texts for / antuhšaš / " man ". The usual in Assyriology transliteration is lú in all cases, where for logograms a reproduction in non- italic lowercase letters is customary. Such logograms are commonly referred to in Akkadian and Hittite texts in some slate terminology as Sumerogramm because as a modern transliteration provided for all languages of the Sumerian phonetic value is common.
Certain logograms whose Sumerian reading is considered unknown or unsecured, are employed in non- italic capital letters. So there is a transliterated as U.S. measure of length, whose reading is considered unsecured. The transliteration is because the same character is used in Akkadian as Phonogram for us and therefore, the length could have had the reading / us / at least. Capitalization is also used to indicate the uncertainty between several possible descriptions of ambiguous characters. For example, one is, and the same character (originally picture of a foot ) for the Sumerian verbs, "go" and gub "stand", which is also transliterated as a rule so. A decision between the two readings thus includes here with the pure name of the cuneiform character even a substantive interpretation of the text. If a text editor but do not want to opt for one of the two readings in a given context, he transliterated DU. The capitalization here is a code to designate the character of the original, but indicates that you do not want to commit specifically to one of the possible interpretations.
Phonograms are usually for compounds of the type consonant vowel consonant vowel or consonant vowel consonant. They are transliterated the same in all cuneiform languages and have at least in principle, the same pronunciation. So, you can syllabic signs because as syllabic signs for / da /, for example, in grammatical endings, both in Sumerian, Akkadian, see, Hittite cuneiform and other languages. In the transliteration of Akkadian and Hittite (not Sumerian ), it is common to set phonograms in italic lowercase letters. For example, the genitive of the Akkadian word for "man ", / awilim /, with the combination of the logogram lú ( = Akkadian / awilum / ) and the phono -gram lim, which specifies the grammatical form, are written. This combination of two cuneiform characters you transliterated lú - lim.
Determinative are often formally identical with logograms, but are not alone for a word or word core, but are already a complete phonographic or logographic advertised word yet added. For example, the characters already mentioned lú " man " in Sumerian, Akkadian or Hittite texts certain people names, such as job titles, precede, without it being read along phonetically as such. Such a sign with semantic value, but without direct phonetic realization is called a determinative; the usual transliteration is as superscript minuscule. In this area, many cases of doubt may arise as in the Sumerian word lú - Erim "enemy" (literally man - hostile ). It could be here, that was really on Sumerian / luerim / spoken; in this case would be available two logograms. But perhaps only / Erim / was spoken and would lú only the value of a Determinativs had. Who is this opinion, the item lú transliterate superscript after the convention. Since the pronunciation of words in cuneiform languages often has uncertainties inherent in the nature, character classification remains uncertain to some degree and also fluctuates Transliterationspraxis between the individual researchers.
Transliteration with accents and index numbers
The transliteration of a cuneiform sign is in principle unique, that is, from the transliterations can be, apart from palaeographical details, always tap the cuneiform characters used in the original. A character is also, in principle, transliterated always the same regardless of whether the text is written in Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, etc.. To enable the uniqueness, All characters are in the transliteration ( 1) separated by a hyphen or other typographical means ( whitespace, high position), and (2) characters for which an identical phonetic value is assumed by accents and / or subscript numbers distinguished from each other. Today decisive here is the codified by the Assyriologists Borger, Civil and Ellermeier system (BCE ) system. So there is a sign lu (frequent Phonogram eg in Akkadian ). A second character for which - in Sumerian - also the phonetic value / lu / is set, it describes lú with an acute or alternatively lu2 with index number 2 ( the above-mentioned word for " man "). Other characters with the phonetic value / lu / man listed as lù or LU3 (among a Sumerian verb for " to confuse " ), then with 4 and higher index numbers. It must therefore be noted in particular that the emphasis must never be misconstrued as Betonungs or similar information.
Since the transliteration for all cuneiform languages is common and must be considered homophones from all languages at the same time, overall very many characters result with the same reading and a correspondingly high density of accents and index numbers regarding the definition of related texts. So in Sumerian, for example, the character gu10 quite frequently ( and Others possessive pronoun "my" ), although in Sumerian itself, most of the gu - character lower index ( gu, gu, gu, gu4, GU5, ... GU9 ) not or are little used. It is once the proposal has been made to develop a purely limited to the Sumerian transliteration, which would relieve the transcription of this language of supplementary characters, but gave up the advantage of applicability to all cuneiform languages.
Written media
The preferred medium of cuneiform writing at the time of its distribution (3000 BC to 500 BC) were mainly made of fired or unfired panels, soft clay, in which the characters were imprinted using a cane or wooden stylus. Royal inscriptions of the Assyrians were mostly struck in stone. The Urartian cuneiform is found almost exclusively on rock. We have not found but also a stylus in silver plates embossed cuneiform texts.