In Teheran I
could visit the museum and look at old scripts as well as newer scripts. Later
I’ve been able also to see, where there artifacts had been unearthed.
Even as early
as 8000 BC there have been clay tokens. Later scripts were developed. One of
these is the Proto-Elamite script, which was before cuneiform and also parallel
to cuneiform. We talk about a period that lies 5000 years before today. These
scripts have been found at different sites and there still is a lot to be
unearthed. Some artifacts come from Susa.
The scripts
show numbers and pictograms. The oldest texts still have to be deciphered.
Numbers are like in neighboring Mesopotamia. Some pictograms are known as they
are pictures of objects. Lots of abstract characters haven’t been deciphered
yet. There is no bilingual tablet. The Elamite language is unknown. It may well
be that some tablets are inventories or registers of taxes. There are texts
from later (1200-1100 BC), which are deciphered, so that some data exists on
the later form of the language. Maybe this will enable us later to decipher
also older texts.
Links:
.
No comments:
Post a Comment