Archaeology
Lost Canaanite language decoded on ancient clay tablets
Researchers have decoded a lost Canaanite language, written on two clay tablets from 4,000-years-ago.
The tablets were discovered in Iraq during the 1980’s, one ending up in a private collection in England, the other at the Jonathan and Jeanette Rosen Cuneiform Collection in the United States.
The provenance of how the tablets ended up in the west is unclear, but they were likely found during the time of the Iran-Iraq War, from 1980 to 1988.
Both tablets record phrases in an unknown language of the Amorites, an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant, who also occupied large parts of southern Mesopotamia.
The phrases are written in a cursive Old Babylonian cuneiform, alongside translations in the Old Babylonian dialect of the Akkadian language (which itself was deciphered in the middle of the 19th century), enabling the scholars to read the unknown language for the first time.
Essentially, the tablets are similar to the Rosetta Stone, a stele inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, during the Ptolemaic dynasty. The top and middle texts of the Rosetta Stone are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek, making the Rosetta Stone key to deciphering the Egyptian scripts.
Researchers, Manfred Krebernik, and Andrew R. George, have been analysing the tablets since 2016, with the results of the their study now published in the latest issue of the French journal Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale (Journal of Assyriology and Oriental Archaeology).
By looking at the grammar and vocabulary, the researchers have determined that the lost language is part of the West Semitic family of languages, which includes Hebrew and Aramaic.
“The singularity of the two tablets’ content may indicate that they come from the same scriptorium. They are sufficiently similar in handwriting to suggest that they may even be the work of the same individual scribe,” said the researchers.
The contents on Text 1 describes the names of deities, stars and constellations, foodstuffs and clothing. Text 2 is entirely devoted to bilingual phrases drawn from social intercourse.
The presence of alkam ana ṣ ē r ī – ya “come here to me” near the end of Text 1 and of alkam “come here” at the beginning of Text 2, suggests that the latter is a sequel document and further reinforces the argument that the tablets are the work of the same person.
https://doi.org/10.3917/assy.116.0113
Header Image Credit: Rudolph Mayr – Rosen Collection
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
A study of a Roman shipwreck off the coast of Mallorca has identified a new type of amphora.
The shipwreck, known as the shipwreck of Ses Fontanelles, was discovered 65 metres from the coast of a tourist beach near Mallorca’s capital of Palma.
According to a paper published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, the ship dates from the 4th century and likely departed from Cartagena in southeastern Spain while navigating the trade routes of the western Mediterranean.
Archaeologists found in the hold a cargo packaged in amphorae, some of which have painted inscriptions (tituli picti) on the exterior. The inscriptions provide information such as the origin, destination, type of product, and the owner of the goods – identified as “Alunnius et Ausonius.”
The amphorae have been classified into four main group types. The most abundant is the Almagro 51c type amphorae, for which the tituli picti indicate a contents of fish sauce which derives almost exclusively from a single species: the European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus)
The other groups consist of the flat-bottomed amphorae, the Keay XIX type, and a new type of amphora named Ses Fontanelles I, which is larger and heavier than most other amphorae types and was used for carrying plant oil.
According to the study authors: “All the analytical data suggest that Alunnius et Ausonius prepared a trade enterprise fleeting, a merchant ship with a cargo composed mainly of fish sauce (Liquaminis flos), in Almagro 51c amphora, oil transported in Ses Fontanelles I amphorae (probably an imitation of Dressel 23 type), and grape derivates or fruits preserved in those substances in flat-bottomed amphorae.”
Header Image Credit : Arqueomallornauta – Consell de Mallorca
Sources : Cau-Ontiveros, M.Á., Bernal-Casasola, D., Pecci, A. et al. Multianalytical approach to the exceptional Late Roman shipwreck of Ses Fontanelles (Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain). Archaeol Anthropol Sci 16, 58 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-024-01952-3
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
A new study published in the journal Antiquity has revealed hundreds of previously unrecorded monuments at Baltinglass in County Wicklow, Ireland.
The Baltinglass area (known as ‘Ireland’s Hillfort Capital’) has a high density of Early Neolithic and Late Bronze Age monuments, however, very little evidence has been recorded that dates from the Middle Neolithic period.
According to Dr James O’Driscoll from the University of Aberdeen, the ancient landscape around Baltinglass was incredibly important to the Early Neolithic people, however, the lack of Middle Neolithic evidence suggests that this importance was lost until the Late Bronze Age.
Using advanced LiDAR technology, archaeologists have created detailed three-dimensional models, revealing hundreds of ancient sites that that been destroyed by thousands of years of ploughing.
Image Credit : Antiquity
Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), is a method of remote sensing using light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges (variable distances) to the Earth. The differences in the laser return times and wavelengths can be used to compile a 3-D digital map of the landscape.
The most significant discovery from the survey is a cluster of five cursus monuments, the largest example found in both Britain and Ireland. The purpose of such monuments are speculative, but some theories propose that they were used in rituals connected with ancestor veneration, that they follow astronomical alignments, or that they served as buffer zones between ceremonial and occupation landscapes.
Image Credit : Antiquity
According to the study authors: “These five cursus monuments are clearly aligned with burial monuments in the landscape, as well as the rising and setting sun during major solar events such as the solstice.”
“This may have symbolised the ascent of the dead into the heavens and their perceived rebirth, with the cursus physically setting out the final route of the dead, where they left the land of the living and joined the ancestors beyond the visible horizon,” said Dr O’Driscoll.
Header Image Credit : Antiquity
Sources : Antiquity | Exploring the Baltinglass cursus complex: routes for the dead? – James O’Driscoll. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2024.39
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
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