U. CHICAGO (US) — Scientists have written the final chapter of a near century-long project to document words written in cuneiform on clay tablets in Mesopotamia between 2500 B.C. and A.D. 100.

“I feel proud and privileged to have brought this project home,” says Martha Roth, professor of Assyriology and near eastern languages at the University of Chicago and editor-in-charge of the dictionary.

]]> http://www.futurity.org/society-culture/book-closes-on-90-year-dictionary-effort/feed/ 2 http://www.futurity.org/society-culture/images-capture-details-of-ancient-tablets/ http://www.futurity.org/society-culture/images-capture-details-of-ancient-tablets/#comments Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:26:23 +0000 William Harms-Chicago http://futurity.org/?p=4835

Tablets uncovered at Persepolis in Iran are covered with writing in Aramaic.

U. CHICAGO (US)—High-quality scans of ancient documents discovered in Iran are shedding new light on Imperial Aramaic, the dialect used for international communication and record-keeping in many parts of the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires, including parts of the administration at the imperial court of Persepolis.

Members of the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California are collaborating with researchers at the University of Chicago to make very high-quality electronic images of nearly 700 Aramaic texts that were incised in the surfaces of clay tablets with styluses or inked on the tablets with brushes or pens.

]]> http://www.futurity.org/society-culture/images-capture-details-of-ancient-tablets/feed/ 0