[HN Gopher] The Mystery of the Oldest Writing System Remained Un...
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       The Mystery of the Oldest Writing System Remained Unsolved Until
       1856
        
       Author : wyclif
       Score  : 67 points
       Date   : 2025-03-23 11:24 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
        
       | z3t4 wrote:
       | How do you decipher writing? Do you just guess what one glyph
       | means and then try to figure out the context!? What is the
       | Rawlinson Method?
        
         | yorwba wrote:
         | _[...] by searching for the names of ancient Persian kings in
         | the parallel inscriptions [...] the names would have been
         | pronounced approximately the same way in Old Persian and
         | Akkadian._
         | 
         | Compare also how Old Persian had been deciphered by Grotefend
         | using a similar method.
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Friedrich_Grotefend#Deci...
         | 
         | (An uncharitable reading of the story in the article is that
         | the "Rawlinson method" consists of claiming credit for
         | discoveries made by Hincks.)
        
       | yubblegum wrote:
       | > Layard and his protege, a Christian Arab from Mosul named
       | Hormuzd Rassam ...
       | 
       | Hormuzd Rassam was not an "Arab". He was an Assyrian. Not many
       | (any, ever?) "Arabs" go around sporting an ancient Iranian name
       | for God (Hormuzd) for their first name, though it is interesting
       | how that name somehow got adopted by the Chaldean Christian
       | Assyrian community. And based on his bio on wikipedia, it appears
       | his mother was in fact from a Jewish family since her father's
       | name was Isaak Halabee (which is the Arabized variant of ytskhq
       | khlybh).
       | 
       | One expects more from a magazine published by the Smithsonian,
       | and rather ironic in an article about ancient languages of that
       | region.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormuzd_Rassam#Early_life
       | 
       | https://www.uncomfortableoxford.com/unburying-an-archaeologi...
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishak_Haleva - not his grandfather
       | but the same exact name.
        
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       (page generated 2025-03-24 23:01 UTC)