Tweet
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/ancient-language-discovered-on-clay-tablets-found-amid-ruins-of-2800-year-old-middle-eastern-palace-7728894.html
Ancient language discovered on clay tablets found amid ruins of 2800
year old Middle Eastern palace
David Keys
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Archaeologists have discovered evidence for a previously unknown
ancient language - buried in the ruins of a 2800 year old Middle
Eastern palace.
The discovery is important because it may help reveal the ethnic and
cultural origins of some of history's first `barbarians' - mountain
tribes which had, in previous millennia, preyed on the world's first
great civilizations, the cultures of early Mesopotamia in what is now
Iraq.
Evidence of the long-lost language - probably spoken by a hitherto
unknown people from the Zagros Mountains of western Iran - was found
by a Cambridge University archaeologist as he deciphered an ancient
clay writing tablet unearthed by an international archaeological team
excavating an Assyrian imperial governors' palace in the ancient city
of Tushan, south-east Turkey.
The tablet revealed the names of 60 women - probably prisoners-of-war
or victims of an Assyrian forced population transfer programme. But
when the Cambridge archaeologist - Dr. John MacGinnis - began to
examine the names in detail, he realized that 45 of them bore no
resemblance to any of the thousands of ancient Middle Eastern names
already known to scholars.
Because ancient Middle Eastern names are normally composites, made-up,
in full or abbreviated form, of ordinary words in the relevant local
lexicon, the unique nature of the tablet's 45 mystery names is seen by
scholars as evidence of a previously unknown language.
The clay tablet text originally formed part of the palace's archive -
used by local Assyrian imperial officials to record their
administrative, political and economic decisions and actions.
The 60 women (including the 45 with evidence of the previously
unattested language) were almost certainly being deployed by the
palace authorities for some economic purpose (potentially a
female-associated craft activity like weaving). Indeed the text
mentions that some of them were being allocated to specific local
villages.
Typical names, borne by the women - the evidence for the lost language
- include Ushimanay, Alagahnia, Irsakinna and Bisoonoomay.
Now archaeologists and linguistics experts are set to analyse the
mystery names in even greater details to try to discover whether the
letter-order or letter frequency shows any similarities to previously
attested ancient tongues to which this mystery language could be
related.
The 45 women are thought to come from somewhere in the central or
northern Zagros Mountains - because that is the only area in which the
Assyrians were militarily active at the relevant time where the
ancient languages are still largely unknown.
It's likely that the women were compulsorily moved from their Zagros
Mountains homeland and assigned to work near Tushan sometime in the
second half of the 8th century BC - probably as a result of conquests
carried out in the Zagros by the Assyrian kings Tiglath Pilasser III
or Sargon.
The excavation of the palace at Tushan is being carried out by a
German archaeological team directed by Dr. Dirk Wicke of Mainz
University as part of an archaeological investigation into the ancient
Assyrian city led by Professor Timothy Matney of the University of
Akron in Ohio. Full details about the discovery of the mystery names
are published in the current issue of the Journal of Near Eastern
Studies .
David Keys is the Archaeology Correspondent for The Independent
From: Baghdasarian
Ancient language discovered on clay tablets found amid ruins of 2800
year old Middle Eastern palace
David Keys
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Archaeologists have discovered evidence for a previously unknown
ancient language - buried in the ruins of a 2800 year old Middle
Eastern palace.
The discovery is important because it may help reveal the ethnic and
cultural origins of some of history's first `barbarians' - mountain
tribes which had, in previous millennia, preyed on the world's first
great civilizations, the cultures of early Mesopotamia in what is now
Iraq.
Evidence of the long-lost language - probably spoken by a hitherto
unknown people from the Zagros Mountains of western Iran - was found
by a Cambridge University archaeologist as he deciphered an ancient
clay writing tablet unearthed by an international archaeological team
excavating an Assyrian imperial governors' palace in the ancient city
of Tushan, south-east Turkey.
The tablet revealed the names of 60 women - probably prisoners-of-war
or victims of an Assyrian forced population transfer programme. But
when the Cambridge archaeologist - Dr. John MacGinnis - began to
examine the names in detail, he realized that 45 of them bore no
resemblance to any of the thousands of ancient Middle Eastern names
already known to scholars.
Because ancient Middle Eastern names are normally composites, made-up,
in full or abbreviated form, of ordinary words in the relevant local
lexicon, the unique nature of the tablet's 45 mystery names is seen by
scholars as evidence of a previously unknown language.
The clay tablet text originally formed part of the palace's archive -
used by local Assyrian imperial officials to record their
administrative, political and economic decisions and actions.
The 60 women (including the 45 with evidence of the previously
unattested language) were almost certainly being deployed by the
palace authorities for some economic purpose (potentially a
female-associated craft activity like weaving). Indeed the text
mentions that some of them were being allocated to specific local
villages.
Typical names, borne by the women - the evidence for the lost language
- include Ushimanay, Alagahnia, Irsakinna and Bisoonoomay.
Now archaeologists and linguistics experts are set to analyse the
mystery names in even greater details to try to discover whether the
letter-order or letter frequency shows any similarities to previously
attested ancient tongues to which this mystery language could be
related.
The 45 women are thought to come from somewhere in the central or
northern Zagros Mountains - because that is the only area in which the
Assyrians were militarily active at the relevant time where the
ancient languages are still largely unknown.
It's likely that the women were compulsorily moved from their Zagros
Mountains homeland and assigned to work near Tushan sometime in the
second half of the 8th century BC - probably as a result of conquests
carried out in the Zagros by the Assyrian kings Tiglath Pilasser III
or Sargon.
The excavation of the palace at Tushan is being carried out by a
German archaeological team directed by Dr. Dirk Wicke of Mainz
University as part of an archaeological investigation into the ancient
Assyrian city led by Professor Timothy Matney of the University of
Akron in Ohio. Full details about the discovery of the mystery names
are published in the current issue of the Journal of Near Eastern
Studies .
David Keys is the Archaeology Correspondent for The Independent
From: Baghdasarian