Reflections Related to the Roman Rosetta

In order to not bombard the blog with an excessive number of posts about my group's experience with the Rosetta Project, I have combined my three reflections into one very long blog post... Hopefully, it's not too long. (Ok, it is really long. That's because it's three posts of varying length in one, but it's more organized this way and less obnoxious, I think.)

Part One: Creating the Artifact
In creating wax tablets for the Rosetta Project, my group (see also the posts by Marc Wein (part 2) and Alyssa Cardon; Madison Grant will have one up, too; I am blatantly stealing pictures from their posts as well as the Asians who took more pictures of out tablet...) had the advantage of not needing to chisel out stone, but the creation process was a bit more involved than some of the others.

The final product should have looked something like this. Essentially, we have a wooden folder with wax on the inner right that we would write on. There's really two major differences between our wax tablet and the one that the Romans would have used. First, the Romans would have probably used beeswax, which we were unsuccessful at finding. Instead, we used what wax we could find, scented wax melts, which was good because my apartment smelled nice afterwards, but this provided a few challenges for us... Second, we weren't able to find anything at all authentic for the binding of the codex, so we just have single tablets that have been removed from a codex. (Come on, we weren't going to give another group a whole codex to translate! We don't want to give away that many of Ancient Rome's secrets!)

This is what our final product ended up looking like:

Rosetta Project: My Maya Akkadian experience (Part 1 and 2)

First, this post is a compilation of both the first half and second half of my Rosetta learning experience. Some parts are labelled and specifically discuss on part of the project. Others are mixed.

Akkadian is tedious. When I found out we were assigned Akkadian, I found some basic information online regarding the grammar and symbols Source, but not enough to make sense of the lines and triangles on the clay tablet. Thus, I enlisted the help of Dr. Stratford, a BYU Professor and expert in Akkadian. I set up a meeting with him, and Erin met with him as I was unable to go at the time that worked for him. He provided as valuable information, informing us that the group had written the text in the wrong direction and gave us a guide of the symbols, which helped us to efficiently translate the cuneiform Akkadian, to the syllables, to English when we met as a group that night. These symbols then represent other syllables that have to be translated to English. Did I mention tedious? I wish we had included the syllabic translation of Akkadian on our Rosetta Stone, because it added another complicated dimension. The second half of the project Holland, Erin, Mike and I met at Mike's apartment to put all of our information together and resources together into the lovely "Rosetta Stone" pictured above.

I learned many things during this experience:

•  Make sure your source is accurate. If not, it will add additional complications.


• It fascinates me that these lines and triangles actually communicate something as it just looks like geometric configurations to me.  However, if these triangles are misplaced, it doesn't actually mean anything. If you are unfamiliar with the language, it can take a while to realize this. 

We not only had to deal with an unfamiliar language, but also with the mistakes of the group who wrote Akkadian. (This is understandable as it was a learning experience for them too.) Erin shared with us that Dr. Stratford had told her that the cuneiform text should be written horizontally–left to right. However, the Akkadian group had written their word vertically, top to bottom. . We wrote it correctly on our Rosetta Stone. I wonder how many mistakes and misinterpretations have been made throughout history. . . ?

Handle Your Medium with Care: 
The tablet broke while in class moments after we got it. Thankfully we had the modern technology of photographs and the internet so that we did not have to carry our broken slab of clay around throughout the entire translation process and risk losing this valuable information. This photo was an effective way to share the tablet so that we could all work on the translation process simultaneously in different places. Imagine how little information we would have today if the mediums were as fragile as this piece of clay. . .

This is the Akkadian clay tablet we received to translate. Notice the faint crack on the right hand side.
Yes, it broke into two pieces. Thankfully, it was still legible. Lesson learned: Some mediums need to be handled with more care than others.

Rosetta Stone Response Part 2

Our group was responsible for translating Chinese characters into English, and then into a form of Cuneiform.

Translating the Chinese characters was quite simple. Chinese has changed relatively little in the centuries it has been around. Thus, a message written in Chinese antiquity was easily translated by some very helpful Chinese students here at BYU.

Translating our now English phrase into Acadian or Sumerian was much more difficult. We had to consult the very helpful Professor Stratford, as well as some online resources and a book he loaned us. We came across a few different ways of going about the translation, but eventually we settled on one that worked.

One thing that was interesting to me was the process of simplification and clarification that we went through. The original literal Chinese messages read something like “If you have the strong will to do something, you will have success" and "You have the advantage if you move first." We immediately recognized the first one as being very close to an English saying: when there’s a will there’s a way. We left the other one pretty much as is. We then had to make these phrases, or these ideas, work for our new script. We came up with symbols that most closely represented the idea, rather than take the symbols for each English letter and write it out that way. This was much more efficient, and probably more representative of the way an ancient Mesopotamian would write.

This project forced me to confront some issues of translation that I had already been thinking about for a few years. Our translation was probably not perfect, but the exercise was immensely enlightening. It was a great way to wrap up everything I have learned and blogged about in this Written Knowledge unit.

The Half-Blood Prints

Someone who is very knowledgeable, especially a college professor, is likely to be portrayed with a book about a favorite subject. Those who know a lot about several different topics is said to be "well-versed" (which I am assuming comes from a time before books, when bards would sing verses) or "well-read." Those who have an even more advanced knowledge that is mysterious or even mystical are also typically portrayed with a book, a book of spells.

If we see a depiction of Merlin, who lived before printed text existed, he would likely still have a book- and a rather large book at that. In addition to being highly expensive because of its size, such a book is worth even more because of the knowledge it contains. Clergymen, one of the most powerful class in the middle ages, always had another rather large book with them: the Bible, which although not a book of spells does have some similarities to one because of the super-human elements in both. Books have long been associated with both knowledge and power. But how does this concept change when books go from being hand-written to being printed?

To answer this question, I am going to do something incredibly post-medieval and post-Renaissance. I'm going to talk about our newest celebrity...

Proving Proficiency

During this last weekend, I had the fortunate experience of being flown to Seattle Washington to interview for a prestigious internship this upcoming summer.  Huge amounts of communication, and the resources and time of many company employees were dedicated to evaluating if I constituted a good investment for my prospective employers.  In the down time on my trip, and since then, I have put some thought into how employers decide who to hire.  It dawned on me that such decisions have been around for all of written history and in many civilizations that couldn't even write.

Creating My Maya Signature

Sticking with the ongoing signature theme, and because I am in the Americas group, as a preface to the project this week I decided to do some more in-depth research in how to write in Maya. I realize it is quite complicated and will be a challenging project.
I learned there are multiple ways to write syllables and sounds. Thus, people could often have a unique style in writing their name. For this post, I am going to attempt to write my name in Maya.
I got my syllable glyph information from Famsi.org
The Mayas used what is called a "syllabrary", like an alphabet, but with syllables. This means that consonants and vowels are paired together. The phonetics of the vowels in Maya are similar to Spanish.

My name is "Brianne".  Based on what I read, in Maya, this would translate into the syllables Ba-Ri-an-ne and would be meshed as one glyph based on the number of syllables.
However, because there is NOT a hieroglyph that represents R I use the L+i sign. (According to Famsi.org). Thus, the Maya syllables I will use are Ba-Li-An-Ne.
 I used this image showing compilations of glyphs based on syllables in another post. However, now I actually know what it means.

The first half image is an example of a simple In the latter half, glyphs are numbered. Glyphs change shape, significance, and position depending on the numbers of syllables in a word. Each number represents a different glyph that represents a syllable. Because my name has 4 syllables in maya, I will use the structure with only 4.

Counting Before and After

Dr. Burton got really excited about numeral systems in class today, and while many of us mentioned the images of the counting systems for our civilizations, no one created has a post about it (actually, it probably wasn't ever directly related to what we were talking about, but whatever). Since we all have at least a little familiarity with Roman numerals, and because numbers were important to the Romans, I figured I'd do a brief post on them.

Please Sign Here x_________________________

In my research of Mesopotamia, I haven noticed particular emphasis on business and law. The cuneiform writing system was heavily utilized in business and trade, and was an essential part of the Sumerian legal system. I learned in the presentation at the HBLL that even some of the smallest business dealings were recorded on the clay tablets. I talked extensively in a previous post about the way a written code or law developed in Mesopotamia almost as soon as a written system had developed.

It seemed to me that a society that was heavy on business and law would naturally develop a form of written contract. And, turns out, I was correct. This source puts the first written contracts as having originated in early Mesopotamian civilization.

The Problem with Writing

I feel like the overall theme we established with our unit on oral culture was, in simplified terms, something like "Oral preservation and subsequent acquisition of knowledge is much more important than we realized, and it has preserved a lot of knowledge about past civilizations." I feel like what we're kind of getting to with this unit is "Written knowledge enhanced the oral" with some sort of implication that the written is superior. HOWEVER, I think this is too hasty a statement for us to make without considering some downsides to written knowledge that haven't really been discussed yet.

The tempting, yet not applicable exhibit

So, as per group discussion, that exhibit in the MOA doesn't quite fit what we're talking about. It's more interested in creating interesting art than it is discussing written knowledge or anything along those lines. However, this makes sense, considering it is an art exhibit after all.
Let's keep our eyes open for something else that could enhance our group's learning in the area of written knowledge! Post suggestions here in the comments, or let's talk in class.

Maya Stela 5: Mormon Myths, Misconceptions, and Methodology

Izapa Stela 5

Today my post is a response to a presentation by Dr. Mark Wright that I attended yesterday at the Religion Symposium regarding Izapa Stela 5 (pictured to the right). As I reflected on his presentation, what I learned helped tie together written knowledge and the misconceptions that can occur when one misinterprets the written word of another culture or worse, takes it out of its cultural context. If these misinterpretations are then spread through both modern oral folklore and written knowledge, it becomes especially difficult to learn the truth as one's judgement's becomes trained to see what they want to believe.  
Dr. Wright is an expert in the Maya Hieroglyphs and has spent many field studies studying the Maya. He is particularly interested in correlations between the ancient Maya people and the Book of Mormon. 


Many experts have their theory about Stela 5. Some LDS scholars think that it depicts Lehi's Vision of the Tree of Life as found in the Book of Mormon in 1 Nephi Ch 8.  I have heard this Mormon myth before and was excited to learn if it had any validity.


Wright's objective was to demonstrate the importance of having good data and good methodology in order to have the most accurate conclusions that are not biased by one's assumptions regarding the interpretation of Maya hieroglyphs. 

Cursive? Old-fashioned or worth reviving? (A Response to Alex's Post)

Alex's post (In the Know(ledge): Miscellaneous Mesopotamia) got me thinking about different forms of handwriting and the devolution of handwriting in the United States. Our letters haven't changed, but the style in which we write them has changed. Think back to the formality of the calligraphy used to write the Declaration of Independence and John Hancock's classic, lavish signature. . . Now think of your own signature. . . Are they of the same quality? Probably not, but does it matter?

Miscellaneous Mesopotamia

While Sumerians wrote many things down, I couldn’t find anything to suggest that there have been journals, personal narratives, or philosophical musings recovered from this very early civilization. This suggests to me that writing was utilized at first in this society for necessities, and only be those wealthy and educated. This video, apparently from the Discovery Channel, addresses a lot of very interesting things about Sumerians and writing. It’s worth watching!

If Discovery Channel can be trusted, the stylus is actually a convenient and effective writing instrument. It has the necessary sharpness to be accurate in the soft clay, and is commonly and cheaply available. 

And this video just kind of caught my eye…

Now that we write, we can draw horribly inaccurate pictures!

As I mentioned in my post about the transition from an oral culture to a written culture in Rome, the Empire itself had a very important use for writing, especially as Rome tried to manage its empire. One thing that helped Rome not only manage its empire but also expand it was Roman cartography, which was very much related to writing.

From the Mouth of Historians

"Chance, as Conrad liked to call it---luck, or even fate, as others prefer to think---plays its part as much in shaping the destinies of races as of individuals, dispensing vicissitudes or boons alike upon the lone figure and the composite group.  Of the vicissitudes the saddest, though assuredly not the most dire, is that by which the dead are relegated to oblivion.  It is perhaps a subconscious awareness of this hazard that so often directs the steps of an indolent walker to an old churchyard, leading him to pause by a decayed tombstone, to wonder as he gazes at its perished and illegible inscription as to what manner of man was laid beneath the enigmatic slab, to speculate upon his way of life, and to regret that all traces of this once vital and alert being---even to the record of his name and life span---have now forever faded from the notice of mankind."
-Introduction to 'The Scythians' by Tamara Talbot Rice

Changed My Mind

I had previously stated that the Sumerians must have done some serious prioritization about what they wrote since writing was clumsy and time consuming. However, last class period changed my mind. The lecture illuminated the fact that they kept detailed records of all their business transactions, and the tablet she showed us was small and intricate. This makes it seem like writing actually wasn't the obnoxious process I was making it sound like. So it looks to me like my theory falls short. This leaves me with the question, why then did they write down some things, and not other things seemingly so well-suited to recording?

Roman Plates

I really enjoyed going to the Special Collections yesterday. Seeing all the items there was really cool, especially the hand-made illustrated book (I don't remember whether it was actually a Bible or not) from France. Out of all the things we looked at, there was one that stood out to me as very different: the Roman military/citizenship document. As Rome is my focus civilization, I figured I'd write a short post on the plates.

Laying Down the Law

When found in 1901, Hammurabi’s code was celebrated as the earliest set of written laws. We now know that the Sumerians are responsible for the first set of written codes or laws. Known as the code of Ur-Nammu, these laws are very interesting to examine. They connect us with the Sumerians by illuminating common societal problems and humanizing an extinct civilization.

The code

Ur-Nammu

1. If a man commits a murder, that man must be killed.


2. If a man commits a robbery, he will be killed.


3. If a man commits a kidnapping, he is to be imprisoned and pay 15 shekels of silver.


4. If a slave marries a slave, and that slave is set free, he does not leave the household.


5. If a slave marries a native (i.e. free) person, he/she is to hand the firstborn son over to his owner.


6. If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man, they shall kill that male.


7. If the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free. 


8. If a man proceeded by force, and deflowered the virgin slavewoman of another man, that man must pay five shekels of silver. 


9. If a man divorces his first-time wife, he shall pay her one mina of silver. 


10. If it is a (former) widow whom he divorces, he shall pay her half a mina of silver. 


From Podium to Pen in Rome

So, we had a nice little break with King Benjamin and his teaching charity, one of the most important ideas of Christianity. Now... back to bloodthirsty and pagan Romans!

The Roman Empire serves as an excellent example of how a culture can change from being oral to being written. In a previous post, I mentioned how Virgil's Aeneid, published in 19 BC, showed how Roman culture was still principally oral. In his day, there would have been Romans who could tell the entire story of the Aeneas's journey in the Aeneid much like bards would have told stories such as Beowulf. Within half a century, however, this had changed. When Ovid published his Metamorphoses in 8 AD, there were still people who could orally tell the stories that he had published. Very few people, however, (if any other than Ovid himself) could tell all of these stories. Within the decade(s) after Metamorphoses was published, Rome had a very much written culture. (While Ovid's works, Metamorphoses in particular, played a role in this shift, I should clarify that I do not mean Ovid himself was solely responsible, for that would be a very generous assertion on his behalf.)

Intro to Maya glyphs

This serpent is a hieroglyph at the Maya ruin Uxmal. I took this picture during a light show,
Thus, it's lit up and easy to see the snake on the Maya ruin wall.

When I went to Mexico,  I saw their hieroglyphs first hand, preserved after thousands of years. . There are hundreds of hieroglyphs. The Maya can write anything that they can say. Hieroglyphs consist of logograms (to express meaning) or syllabograms (to denote sound values), and are used to write words, phrases, and sentences (Source).



I found this fantastic reference online that goes through the different Maya glyphs. It's interesting that their structure of writing was so advanced that they have slightly varying hieroglyphs to represent different tenses of verbs.