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Table of Contents, the chapters
1. Akkadian, a great cultural language of world history, an introduction
2. Mesopotamia
1. Introduction
* Geography, Climate, People, Trade/natural resources, Divine World,
Assyriology, Tell/tepe/höyuk
2. Prehistory in Mesopotamia
* Neolithic, Chalcolithic
3. Protohistory in Mesopotamia
* Protohistory in texts, First cities, Old Sumerian Age
4. History of the Bronze Age in Mesopotamia
* Sargon of Akkad, dynasty of Ur-III, Old Assyrian period, Late Bronze
Age,
5. History of the Iron Age in Mesopotamia
* New Assyrian period, New Babylonian empire
3. sample texts in cuneiform
1. Babylonian epic of creation, Enuma elish, tablet I
1. cuneiform text and transliteration (.ps-format, 8 pages)
or in .gif-images
2. About the epic of creation (to be written)
3. first few lines explained in detail
4. translation of tablet I
5. other translation of all tablets
2. Codex Hammurabi, prologue
1. first few lines explained in detail
4. cuneiform writing system
1. origin
1. three dimensional clay tokens, 2. pictograms
2. clay tablets
3. physical appearance of cuneiform signs
4. value of cuneiform signs
1. phonogram, 2. logogram, 3. determinative, 4. phonetic complement.
5. cuneiform sign lists
6. cuneiform fonts for use in TeX and LaTeX
5. Akkadian language
1. introduction (to be written)
2. Semitic languages
3. Akkadian dialects
4. Akkadian grammar
* phonetics ; morphology ; nouns ; pronouns ; verb ; paradigms ;
meaning of verb stems ; weak verbs ;
6. Akkadian dictionaries (to be completed)
1. CAD, Chicago Assyrian Dictionary
2. AHw, Akkadisches handwörterbuch
3. vocabularies
1. Akkadian vocabulary (in Dutch)
# Book references
1. Assyriology. 2. Mesopotamian history. 3. Akkadian grammar. 4. Cuneiform sign lists.
5. Translations. 6. Stories about the decipherment. 7. Cuneiform texts transcriptions for
educational purposes. 8. Cuneiform texts only 9. Books with nice pictures 10.Exact
sciences.
# Some external links
1. All about internet resources Ancient Middle East.
2. About cuneiform texts. 3. language relations. 4. Babylonian history. 5. Images of
cuneiform tablets. 6. Exact sciences. 7. Mythology. 8. Institutes. 9. Museums. 10.
Libraries. 11. Archeology. 12. Maps and Countries of the Middle East. 13. Related
material.
the Akkadian language
Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform texts, an introduction collected by John Heise.
Akkadian is one of the great cultural languages of world history. Akkadian (or
Babylonian-Assyrian) is the collective name for the spoken languages of the culture in
the three millennia BCE in Mesopotamia, the area between the rivers Euphrates and
Tigris, approx. covering modern Irak. The name Akkadian --so called in ancient time-- is
derived from the city-state of Akkad, founded in the middle of the third millennium BCE
and capital of one of the first great empires after the dawn of human history. The
downfall of Akkad is described (in literary terms) in the curse of Akkad, but the name
has continued to be used for millennia since. Akkadian is first attested to in proper
names in Sumerian texts (ca. 2800 BCE). From ca. 2500 BCE one finds texts fully
written in Akkadian. Hundreds of thousands of texts and text fragments have been
excavated, covering many subjects, e.g.
-economy (business, administrative records, purchase and rentals),
-politics (treaties),
-law (witnessed and sealed contracts of marriage, divorce; codes of law),
-history (chronological text, census reports),
-letters (personal, business and state letters),
-religion (prayers, hymns, omens, divination reports),
-scholarly texts (language, word lists, history, technology, mathematics, astronomy) and
-literature (narrative poetry, recounting myths, epics).
The last texts date from the first century A.D. By then Akkadian was already an extinct
language, replaced as a spoken language by Aramaic. The language used a writing
system called cuneiform. Wedge shaped symbols were inscribed on clay tablets with a
reed stylus. This writing system was invented by the Sumerians around the end of the
fourth millennium BCE. Many neighboring countries later adopted this writing method to
record their own language (Eblaites, Hittites, Hurrites, Elamites). Akkadian has been for
centuries the international medium of communication, the lingua franca or language of
diplomacy in the Ancient Near East. Because of this (and also by other means) the
Mesopotamian civilization has had a powerful influence on other areas in the Ancient
Near East and traces of it are found in the Bible and in Greek civilization. The Occident,
in several aspects, indirectly became heir to the Orient, in science (astronomy,
mathematics, medicine), in art (narrative techniques, epic) and in religion (mythology,
theology). Indeed, in classical terminology one could say:
Ex oriente lux ''the light (comes) from the east''
Part of a colophon like the ancient scribes would sometimes give:
1. Akkadian,
a great cultural language of world history
Akkadian is one of the great cultural languages of world history. Akkadian (or
Babylonian-Assyrian) is the collective name for the spoken languages of the culture in
the three millennia BCE in Mesopotamia, the area between the rivers Euphrates and
Tigris, approx. covering modern Irak. The name Akkadian --so called in ancient time-- is
derived from the city-state of Akkad, founded in the middle of the third millennium BCE
and capital of one of the first great empires after the dawn of human history. The
downfall of Akkad is described (in literary terms) in the curse of Akkad, but the name
has continued to be used for millennia since.
Akkadian is first attested to in proper names in Sumerian texts (ca. 2800 BCE). From
ca. 2500 BCE one finds texts fully written in Akkadian. Hundreds of thousands of texts
and text fragments have been excavated, covering many subjects, e.g.
-economy (business, administrative records, purchase and rentals),
-politics (treaties),
-law (witnessed and sealed contracts of marriage, divorce; codes of law),
-history (chronological text, census reports),
-letters (personal, business and state letters),
-religion (prayers, hymns, omens, divination reports),
-scholarly texts (language, word lists, history, technology, mathematics, astronomy) and
-literature (narrative poetry, recounting myths, epics).
The last texts date from the first century A.D. By then Akkadian was already an extinct
language, replaced as a spoken language by Aramaic. The language used a writing
system called cuneiform. Wedge shaped symbols were inscribed on clay tablets with a
reed stylus. This writing system was invented by the Sumerians around the end of the
fourth millennium BCE. Many neighboring countries later adopted this writing method to
record their own language (Eblaites, Hittites, Hurrites, Elamites). Akkadian has been for
centuries the international medium of communication, the lingua franca or language of
diplomacy in the Ancient Near East. Because of this (and also by other means) the
Mesopotamian civilization has had a powerful influence on other areas in the Ancient
Near East and traces of it are found in the Bible and in Greek civilization. The Occident,
in several aspects, indirectly became heir to the Orient, in science (astronomy,
mathematics, medicine), in art (narrative techniques, epic) and in religion (mythology,
theology). Indeed, in classical terminology one could say:
Ex oriente lux ''the light (comes) from the east''
Akkadian language
Diplomatic letter written in Akkadian cuneiform
Semitic language, which served as the common language of peoples of the Middle East
for about 300 years, from the 9th century until the 7th century BCE when Aramaic
started to supplant it. The language was in use for 2,500 years in and around
Mesopotamia.
Akkadian was written in a cuneiform script, with about 600 different signs for either
words or syllables. The sound system used 20 consonants, and 4 short vowels (a, i, e,
u) which also came in long versions. Nouns were declined into either nominative,
accusative, or genitive forms. Numbers were in singular, dual, and plural. Verbs could
be cast in either perfect (for past) or imperfect (for present or future).
HISTORY
Around 2300 BCE: The Akkadian language spreads during the reign of the Akkadian
king, Sargon.
Around 2000 BCE: Akkadian has replaced Sumerian as the spoken language in
southern Mesopotamia.
9th century BCE: The Babylonian dialect of Akkadian has established itself as the lingua
franca of the Middle East.
7th century BCE: Aramaic gradually becomes the dominant language of the Middle
East.
1st century CE: All sources indicate that Akkadian is no longer in use.
19th century: Akkadian is deciphered by scholars.
uneiform writing
Cuneiform writing of Persepolis, Iran
Writing style, that is made from wedge-shaped strokes, inscribed on clay, stone, metal,
wax or other materials. Cuneiform writing has been used in several languages, and was
in use for about 3,000 years, from about 3100 BCE until about year 0.
Cuneiform writing originated in southern Mesopotamia, and was created in the
Sumerian culture, in order to write in the Sumerian language. Later it was used for
Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian. Cuneiform developed into the dominant writing
style of the Middle East, and even spread to Egypt, where hieroglyphic writing was
normally preferred.
Cuneiform writing was also applied to several local languages, like Hurrian in northern
Mesopotamia, Syria and Asia Minor; Eblaite in Syria;, Hittite, Luwian, Palaic and Hattic
in Asia Minor; and Urartian in Armenia. Later developments of cuneiform writing came
to be used in Syria, along with Ugaritic, and, in Persia, along with Old Persian symbols.
STRUCTURE and USE
In its first stages, cuneiform writing was based on pictographs, but for practical reasons,
a system based on straight lines came to pravail. As the pictographs changed into
symbols made from straight lines, they lost their original resemblance to the objects
they represented. Numbers were represented by repeated strokes or circles. In order to
write in cuneiform, a stylus was used to make tapered impressions in clay.
At first every character represented one word, but many words lacked their own
symbols. For these, symbols of related objects were used (a foot could mean both "to
go" and "to stand", in addition to "foot").
In its early stages, cuneiform was written from top to bottom. During the 3rd millennium
BCE, this changed into writing from left to right. The signs also took on new form, being
turned on their sides.
Cuneiform writing developed into a mixture between logograms and syllables.
Logograms allowed that one sign could be read as more than one sound, and,
therefore, having more than one meaning. The method of signage allowed for various
syllables with differing sounds, but, confusingly enough the syllabic symbols could also
be logograms. Cuneiform writing mixed these two symbol types in order to make the
content clear, according to what is called the rebus-system.
There were 600 signs in the fully developed cuneiform system. Half were
logograms/syllables, and the other half only logograms. Only in its latest stages, with
Ugaritic and Old Persian, did cuneiform signs become alphabetic signs. In Old Persian
there were 36 characters, including a word-divider.
When Aramaic spread as the lingua franca in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE,
Phoenician script was introduced, and with this cuneiform writing became gradually
replaced. The last example of cuneiform writing dates to 75 CE.
DECIPHERING and TRANSLATION
It was the Behistun inscription that allowed Western scholars to decipher the cuneiform
systems. In this inscription, there were 3 similar texts in 3 languages: Old Persian,
Elamite and Babylonian. Old Persian was the first system to be deciphered in the
1840's, partly, thanks to existing knowledge of Pahlavi, which was a later Persian
language.
The next system to be translated, even if only in part, was the Elamite text, also in the
1840's. The Babylonian part of the Behistun was the last to be translated, and occurred
through the efforts of scholars in different European countries.
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