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.

First Response to Rosetta Project

As a group we were struggling to come up with an appropriate message to write on our clay tablet. I had to start thinking critically about linguistic issues that arose, and I was ever so glad when our group decided to consult with an expert. It worked so beautifully for my oral interview, and we actually ended up consulting with the same Professor that I interviewed.

However, as intriguing as some of those linguistic concepts were, most of my musings came along with the assignment I was designated for the group effort. It was my job to procure the clay. The current frigid conditions discouraged me from attempting to dig for clay, not to mention BYU grounds crew might be a little upset. Also, the clay I might find would be far from the quality we wanted for this project. So I got in my car and ventured forth to find myself some clay. Michaels, here I come. A quick question to a friendly employee and 13 dollars later, I had myself some high quality, air hardened clay.

But through what process acquired clay in early Mesopotamia? I have thought about this question a lot in the last two days. It is possible that every time somebody needed a tablet that they just went outside, dug up some clay, mixed it up, and made a tablet. However, in a business driven society such as the Sumerians, I figure that there were probably merchants that made their living as clay/tablet suppliers.

Writing, books, printing, and all the associated processes can have major economic ripples. Thinking about the modern process of printing a book was illuminating. Books are made out of paper. Paper is made in a mill, which employs many workers. Paper is made of wood, which is logged by other companies, which also employs many workers. Other companies make their tools. Authors write books. They use commercial products such as computers, word processing software, pens, and pencils. Editors, publishing houses, promoters, bookstores, online retailers, and Oprah all get into the mix. While some of these things could only happen today, many of these things were applicable as early as there has been writing.

The economic effects of Written and Printed Knowledge are far-reaching and impressive. I’d be interested to talk to my Econ professor more about this next semester. 

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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.

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…

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. 


Early Mesopotamia and Sumerian Language Interview

The following transcription is an abridgement of the interview I conducted with instructor Ed Stratford whose area of expertise is Ancient Near East studies. Stratford earned his B.A. at Brigham Young University in 2000, his M.A. at the University of Chicago in 2002, and his Ph.D. also at the University of Chicago in 2010.

I read on an online article that another researcher wrote, that Sumerians essentially taught themselves how to speak or invented an oral language system for their civilization. Is that a valid statement?

Well, taught themselves how to speak is a pretty strong claim…it’s probably too extensive a claim. On the other hand, as far as written language goes, somebody like Glassner who is a French scholar, he argues that between about or around 3500 BC the Sumerians, or some group of Sumerians, absolutely invent writing as a dramatic revolution in communication. Not every scholar agrees with that, some would like to see it as a slow accumulation of written tokens that come together and then finally start working together as a system….that’s harder to defend than a sudden revolution, an invention. I think that’s a reasonable stance…But as far as speaking, I can’t agree with that.