Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum 6000yr Old Cuneiform Deciphered

THE British Museum yesterday hailed a discovery within a clay tablet in its collection as a breakthrough for biblical archeology - proof of the accuracy of the Old Testament.

The cuneiform inscription in a tablet dating from 595BC has been deciphered for the first time - revealing a reference to an official at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, that proves the historical existence of a figure mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah.

It is rare evidence in a non-biblical source of a real person, other than kings, featured in the Bible.

The discovery was made by Michael Jursa, associate professor at the University of Vienna, on a research trip to the museum.
"It's very exciting and very surprising," he said.

"Finding something like this tablet, where we see a person mentioned in the Bible making an everyday payment to the temple in Babylon and quoting the exact date, is quite extraordinary."

Since 1991, Dr Jursa has been visiting the museum to study a collection of more than 100,000 inscribed tablets - the world's largest holdings.
Cuneiform is the oldest known form of writing. During its 3000-year history, it was used to write about 15 languages, including Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite and Urartian.

There are only a small number of scholars worldwide who can read cuneiform script.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22060312-2,00.html

Actually, they've only translated the first line on the tablet. It goes something like this:
"A Phillistine, a Hittite and a Babylonian walk into a bar..."

Oh yeah, I was reading that article on I think the National Geographic website or something. Pretty interesting.

From the link:

'Geza Vermes, the eminent emeritus professor of Jewish studies at the University of Oxford, said such a discovery revealed that "the Biblical story is not altogether invented"'.

This is a typical example of how religious people misrepresent the ideas of the non-religious. No-one doubts that the Bible is reasonably good for historical events from round the time of King Ahab. This tablet dates from this side of his reign so reveals nothing surprising. For events before this time it is totally unreliable.

Regarding earlier Bible history I found this last night while following some ancient links on SAGG:

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20060401025308data_trunc_sys.shtml

From the link:

"Researchers claim that they have evidence that an infamous volcanic eruption occurred 100 years earlier than current records show, and suggest that a realigning of Aegean and Egyptian chronologies by 100 years is in order. This is a highly significant development, as it would make possible Mediterranean cultural alliances that previously seemed impossible.

"This development may have important implications for histories that claim that the seafaring Minoans of Crete, the mercantile Canaanites of northern Egypt and the Levants never had trade relations, as they were separated by 100 years. In light of the revised Santorini eruption date, researcher Stuart Manning believes a new rewriting of history may actually see a meeting of these and other cultures".

This means the Danaan, Dan and Denyen are almost certainly the same people. In other words many Israelite tribes came from the Mediterranean rather than via an Exodus from Egypt.

I'll bet the punch line's missing!

Is there any written record of a joke from anywhere in ancient to medieval history? It would inject some life into the subject.

Cocain in the mummies show trade was much more wide spread than science ever thought it was. Such discoveries will continue I suspect. The "dollar" will always be the driving force behind history.

Thanks for the link, Mike B., from which I can't resist posting this:

"Hippon's Epitaph

This is the tomb of Hippon, whom, when he died, Fate made equal to the immortal gods.
or
This is the tomb of Hippon, whom Fate made just as dead as the immortal gods.

- Hippon, nicknamed 'the Atheist', was a natural philosopher of the age of Pericles."

Is there nothing new under the sun?

Love the Ancient Jokes! Best of all some really are funny!! And rede I guess that if there were always gods there will also always have been atheists!

Scpg02 wrote:

"Cocain in the mummies show trade was much more wide spread than science ever thought it was".

I thought cocain was South American. If it's found in mummies trade in the ancient world was reallly widespread. Have you a link to cocain in Egyptian mummies?

MikeBinOK. Thanks for the joke link. It'll keep me entertained for weeks.

I'm not familiar with anything from the cuneiform age, but I know a poem that I think was written by Martial:

The golden hair that Gulla wears is hers.
Who would have thought it?
She swears 'tis hers
And true she swears
For I know where she bought it.

Another one (not sure of the author):

Though you serve the best wines, Paulus,
rumor opines
that you poisoned your four wives,
I think.
It's, of course, all a lie!
None believes less than I!
No, I really don't care for a drink.

Scpg02, is quite right , I read about Cocaine being found in (some) Egyptian mummies about 5 years ago.
If Cocaine, and certainly Tobacco, was only indiginous to the Americas, it would open a whole new can of worms.
Regarding Inter-continental/Atlantic trade.
Remember 'Theo Hyderal' who proved ancients crossed the Atlantic in a reed rafts. (Sorry I have forgotten the guys exact name).
Also the South American pyramids?

Found a couple of Web sites regarding cocaine. Wiki also has an entry.

http://www.colostate.edu/Dept/Entomology/courses/en570/papers_2000/wells.html
http://www.esolibris.com/articles/alternative_history/cocaine_mummies.php

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf111/sf111p01.htm
*****
- Atheist joke.
"Atheism, is a non-Prophet organization"

Here's another one, Mike, a mystery of how certain isolated peoples came into possession of something they shouldn't have had. Captain Cook reported that Islanders in the Marquesas (Cheifs) had domestic cats as pets. Where'd they get 'em?

How about a wall in a chamber in a Mayan Temple covered in Jade? Not all that unusual, you say? Yeah, until the Jade is identified as having been mined in a quarry in China!

How about the cremated remains of a Chinese Ruler found in an Aluminum urn; dated 2,000 years before Aluminum was "first" smelted by Hans Oester in Europe.

I'm sure there are many more tidbits out there like these, facinating stuff. Now, how do we ever figure these things out?

Thanks Mike. Very interesting. And thanks Scpg02 for alerting me to the the subject. From the first link:

'Egyptologist John Baines (Discovery, 1997) went so far as to state, "The idea that the Egyptians should have traveled to America is overall absurd…'

But hang on. The voyaging was not necessarily done by Egyptians. More likely Phoenicians or the earlier equivalent thereof.

Another quote from the article relevant to my out of Africa thread:

"Balabanova's findings bring yet other evidence forward that humanity is not so easily pinioned into the pre-conceived notions of primitive and advanced - even as this might be related to the presumed technology of earlier times."

By the way Mike, the guy's name was Thor Heyerdal I'm pretty sure. Also sailed a raft across the Pacific with the idea of proving the Polynesians came from America. Of course he failed to prove that but contact certainly seems to have occurred. It seems to be now accepted that Polynesians reached America. I remember making a post on the subject some time ago.

Yeah I thought the cocaine thing was interesting when I first heard it. One of those scientific surprises no one expects.

They found tobaco as well but they also found that a now extinct forum of tobaco could have been growing in Egypt during that time. I didn't find an alternate explanation for the cocaine though.

An extinct form of tobaco? Again I though the tobaco was a member of the Solanum family. Solanum has its greatest variety in the southern hemisphere. A stray nicotine species in ancient Egypt? Contact with America is beginning to look like the most likely scenario.

I agree that contact with America is the most likely source. Trade with China seems to be the route used as silk was also found. But science tests and hypothosizes. This was one of them. I can't find a link to the extinct tobacco plant but I know they found a likely suspect. None was found for cocaine.