We Deciphered Ancient Text From 5000 Years Ago

Comments · 406

• TH

  @TheAncientsPodcast · 3 months ago · pinned

  You can check out the Ancients YouTube channel here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@TheAncientsPodcast">https://www.youtube.com/@TheAncientsPodcast</a>

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• MA

  @mattdaniells7234 · 3 months ago

  Never before has a man looked more like he spends his days deciphering ancient texts. What a bloke.

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• AT

  @AttyMon123 · 3 months ago

  DROP EVERYTHING! Dr. Irving Finkel has another video up on YouTube.

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• LI

  @lindareed8265 · 3 months ago

  I usually watch videos before I click &quot;like,&quot; but this one has Dr. Irving.

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• SI

  @SingySongy · 3 months ago

  Doctor Finkel is a treasure of mankind. &nbsp;Thank the stars for brilliant and congenial scholars like him!

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• J.

  @j.dunlop8295 · 3 months ago (edited)

  My favorite translation of ancient script was the graffiti from the city of Úr, it turned out to be elder, working men complaining about corrupt officials, taxes, young being disrespectful and lazy, the exact same things we gripe about 4,400 yrs. later.

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• CO

  @CosmologicalKev · 3 months ago (edited)

  Any time spent with Dr Irving Finkel is time well spent, thank you sir.

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• LI

  @Liquidsback · 3 months ago

  Mesopotamian Gandalf.

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• GA

  @gailremley · 3 months ago

  Dr. Irving Finkel is a universal treasure!

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• AK

  @Akutabai5 · 3 months ago

  Cuneiform Santa is back, hell yeah. Love this guy

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• AN

  @annahoi · 3 months ago (edited)

  Omg it’s Irving finkel!!! tbh I really wasn’t expecting him on this channel for some reason lol

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• RE

  @reginaldbauer5243 · 3 months ago (edited)

  Cuneiform script lasted over three thousand years and was used to write around 15 different languages, to include: Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Elamite, Hurrian, Hittite, Luwian, Urartian, Ugaritic, and Old Persian, which created their own systems using certain writing techniques combined with original signs. There are also different kinds of cuneiform writings: logographic (Sumerian), syllabic (e.g. Old Persian), and a mix of the two (a logo-syllabary) in many languages, most notably Akkadian. As many as eight languages were in use in the regions of northern Mesopotamia and Anatolia during the period under consideration (middle of 2nd millennium BCE). Interestingly, the Assyrian dialect is usually classified as belonging to the Aramaic branch. Of course, the Assyrians used cuneiform, but they also used the Ashuri alphabet (sometimes called the Assyrian alphabet), a traditional calligraphic form of the Hebrew alphabet. The eastern version of the Syriac alphabet cuneiform writing.<br><br>Since cuneiform is a quite fiendishly difficult writing system, with hundreds of characters used in often very non-intuitive ways, very laborious to learn and to write, this made it vulnerable to competition from other writing systems, with one in particular: Aramaic. Since the Aramaic alphabet was popular and easy to use at the time, Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser III of the Neo-Assyrian Empire made Aramaic the empire’s second official language and began to use the Aramaic alphabet in his communications with the people in the expanded regions west of the Euphrates River and Mesopotamia. However, the Assyrian dialect of the Akkadian language remained the main language in Assyria’s heartland. <br><br>In fact, cuneiform did adapt, but it occurred too late in the process – at the end of the Achaemenid Empire. Interestingly, the Persian government actually created a streamlined, rationalized version of cuneiform — almost completely phonetic and down to 36 syllabic signs and 6 logograms. But even with official support, it never gained widespread acceptance. Only one of our handful of surviving Old Persian texts was a private document; the rest are all formal inscriptions. When the Medes and then the Persians conquered Mesopotamia in the 6th century BCE, they also quickly added Aramaic to their polyglot approach to governance, like the Assyrians. The Persian Empire governed its own homeland in Elamite cuneiform, but they used Aramaic as the language of governance in Egypt, the Levant, Asia Minor. Aramaic was the medium of daily life for common people.

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