(ORDO NEWS) — In the 80s of the last century, two clay tablets were discovered in Iraq, covered from top to bottom with cuneiform text in an unknown language. The age of these tablets is estimated at 4000 years.
For a long time, the find was kept in the basements of a museum in the United States, and no one tried to decipher it.
However, in 2016, these tablets were remembered, and scientists from Germany and Britain took up their study.
The experts managed to find out that the cuneiform text was written in the lost language of the Amorites who lived in ancient Canaan.
At the same time, the tablets contained “hints” that allowed scientists to decipher the text.
How did scientists decipher the ancient text?
The researchers paid attention to the grammar of the language on the tablets, as well as some known words, and concluded that it belongs to the West Semitic family of languages, such as Hebrew, which is currently spoken in Israel, and Aramaic. The latter, unlike Hebrew, is much less common.
Finding similarities between the language in which the tablets were written and those data about the Amorite language that were known, the researchers came to the conclusion that the text was written in it.
And, fortunately for scientists, the tablets turned out to be similar to the famous Rosetta Stone, found in Egypt in 1799.
On this stone, the text was carved in several languages at once – two unknown and ancient Greek, which is well known to science.
On the Iraqi tablets, which are much older than the Rosetta Stone, the text written in Amorite contains a translation into Akkadian, which is also known. Moreover, the description of the Amorite language in Akkadian is very detailed. Scientists report this in their study.
Ancient Canaan and the Akkadian language
If it were not for the presence of translations on Iraqi clay tablets, the authors of the study would hardly have succeeded.
The knowledge of the language of the people from Canaan used to be so small that scholars were not at all sure of its existence.
Recall that Canaan is a territory that covered part of modern Syria, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan. That is, the ancient name of Palestine, Syria and Phoenicia, which existed before the rise of Israel.
Subsequently, the state of Messopatamia arose on this territory, which already existed at the time of the creation of the Iraqi tablets. By the way, earlier we already talked about one amazing find from Canaan.
The territory of Canaan was inhabited by various peoples of West Semitic origin who spoke different languages. One of them was the Akkadian, or Assyro-Babylonian language.
Moreover, it is one of the oldest Semitic languages, which was spoken by three peoples who inhabited the territory of Canaan (later the territory of Mesopotamia) – Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians.
I must say that three thousand years before our era, the Akkadian language was exclusively local, which was spoken in the city of Akkad.
It subsequently became widespread throughout the region, including being rooted in the Babylonian civilization (19th to 6th centuries BC).
Therefore, many clay tablets with ancient cuneiform, discovered by archaeologists, were written in the Akkadian language.
What is written on ancient clay tablets?
According to the authors of the study, the text on the tablets could have been written by a Babylonian scribe who spoke Akkadian, or even by his student.
At the same time, the text on the tablets could be written as an exercise. It is possible that this is generally someone’s ancient homework.
But be that as it may, according to scientists, the text resembles a tourist guide for people who speak Akkadian.
For example, one of the passages describes in detail the greeting phrases and, accordingly, their translation into Akkadian.
The text also contains information about preparing dinner, making sacrifices to the gods, and much more.
For example, there is a list of gods revered by the Amorites and their comparison with the corresponding Mesopotamian gods.
According to the researchers, one of the tablets even contains lyrics that could be a love song.
That is, the tablets contain everything that an Acadian “tourist” might need when communicating with native speakers of the Amorite language 4,000 years ago.
During the study, scientists were also surprised to find that many phrases in Amorite are similar in pronunciation to Hebrew, although the earliest Hebrew script known to science is 1,000 years younger.
Linguists can now explore how these languages have changed over thousands of years and how they have evolved.
Of course, the tablets are of great value not only for linguists, but also for historians. They tell about the life of the peoples of Mesopotamia.
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