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 http://www.futurity.org/science-technology/high-tech-cameras-digitize-ancient-tablets/ http://www.futurity.org/science-technology/high-tech-cameras-digitize-ancient-tablets/#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:21:06 +0000 Futurity-Jenny Leonard http://futurity.org/?p=1125

Matthew Stolper from Chicago’s Oriental Institute examines a tablet on loan from the government of Iran. It’s one of thousands of tablets being imaged for a digital archive.

U. CHICAGO (US)—Thousands of tablets recovered from the palaces of Persepolis, where kings of the ancient Persian Empire held court, are being digitally recorded and archived online by experts at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute. Scholars and viewers across the world will be able to examine the tablets as if they had picked them up and rotated them under a light thanks to advanced imaging technology.

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