| Author |
Message |
    
Thales
bear cub
Username: Thales
Post Number: 37
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 4:37 pm: |     |
Last October I bought (a copy of) a clay tablet in Ebla, Syria.
http://vuoret.net/teppo/matkat/syyria/syyria47.htm
With it I got an English translation, but unfortunately it turns out to be of another tablet. A translation for this one must exist, too. Any ideas how to find one?
Nothing you plan is certain until it has happened, and quite often not even then. |
Pine
flint knapper
Username: Pine
Post Number: 889
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 8:39 pm: | |
Does it have any kind of identifier? Code number or such?
"We have something offensive for everyone. If nothing that we own offends you, please complain." - sign in a library. |
Cavebear
flint knapper
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 1800
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 8:47 pm: | |
Is it possible that searching for an english phrase in your mismatched translation might find a site that has images of known tablets so that you could identify yours? Just a hopeful thought...
The speed of time is 3,600 seconds per hour... |
Thales
bear cub
Username: Thales
Post Number: 38
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 9:54 am: | |
Pine: "Does it have any kind of identifier? Code number or such?"
There are three items, the tablet itself, a box which clearly shows a picture of the same tablet and a sheet of paper which shows two pictures of a different tablet, translation and a bit of background information. The tablet apparently is just a copy of the original, with nothing added. The paper has a number, 17, which looks like an identifier for the tablet, probably for one item in a series of souvenirs. The box has this text: "Cuneiform tablet of Ebla, 2400 B.C. - copy". Not very helpful. The box also has a line of Arabic, which looks like it might include some sort of code or date, although this is mostly just a guess.
Cavebear: "Is it possible that searching for an english phrase in your mismatched translation might find a site that has images of known tablets ..."
Tried that. No results.
Nothing you plan is certain until it has happened, and quite often not even then. |
Per
bear cub
Username: Per
Post Number: 32
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 11:58 pm: | |
Well I've given this link before, but ....
http://www.omniglot.com/ |
Thales
bear cub
Username: Thales
Post Number: 39
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 3:56 pm: | |
I found quite a bit of interesting stuff behind that link, but nothing very helpful.
However, to the page where I put photos of the tablet I have added a link (an icon that looks like a notepad) to the English translation that I do have. While it is of a different tablet, it occurred to me that it still gives an idea of the kind of texts that can be found on clay tablets. In the Finnish text I make it quite clear that the tablet and translation do not belong together. (Though if I did claim that they do, not one person in ten thousand would know that it is not so.)
Still, it would be nice to know what my tablet says. Even just a few words of general explanation would be better than nothing.
Nothing you plan is certain until it has happened, and quite often not even then. |
Per
bear cub
Username: Per
Post Number: 33
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 4:20 pm: | |
Well it might have helped in translating the text ....
I'll admit that the stone looks interesting, but if I zoom in to see if I can decipher the text, it becomes blurred. |
Thalion
flint knapper
Username: Thalion
Post Number: 1629
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 4:36 pm: | |
How many were found, about 17.000? A difficult task to find that out on your own, I would think. I did look at a few sites about the tablets, and find it very interesting, thanks for bringing this up, Thales.
How about looking up some more science-oriented sites about the archives and contact them? For them, just a look at the tablet may identify it. It has this distinct loop-structure on one side, and for the experts certainly more identifiers. They would probably be willing to tell you the id of the tablet. With that you could look in the catalogues, i've seen at least one catalogue online, with text and id numbers, but no pictures.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they pass by - Douglas Adams |
Thales
bear cub
Username: Thales
Post Number: 40
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 4:38 pm: | |
"if I zoom in to see if I can decipher the text, it becomes blurred."
I'm sorry. I took the photos using a cheap borrowed digital camera, which with a wide angle lens and a fairly long minimum focusing distance is not very suitable for this kind of job. In addition, the photo in the Web has a low resolution and low quality to decrease file size. If you are really willing to try to read the tablet, I shall see what I can do to obtain better photos.
Nothing you plan is certain until it has happened, and quite often not even then. |
Thales
bear cub
Username: Thales
Post Number: 41
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 4:46 pm: | |
"How many were found, about 17.000? A difficult task to find that out on your own, I would think."
Some 14 to 17.000 tablets or pieces of tablets, I've read, of which some 6 to 8.000 tablets have been assembled. However, there can not be many of which souvenir copies have been made. I shall try your suggestion. Thank you.
Nothing you plan is certain until it has happened, and quite often not even then. |
Ted
gatherer
Username: Ted
Post Number: 148
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 5:54 am: | |
--------I'm sorry. I took the photos using a cheap borrowed digital camera, which with a wide angle lens and a fairly long minimum focusing distance is not very suitable for this kind of job. In addition, the photo in the Web has a low resolution and low quality to decrease file size. If you are really willing to try to read the tablet, I shall see what I can do to obtain better photos-------
Scanning works brilliantly on this sort of subject. You can get a high resolution that is quite impossible even with the best digital camera.
But be careful not to scratch the glass of your scanner.
Ted
Do not go gentle into that good night...Rage, rage against the dying of the light |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 816
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 5:58 am: | |
Thales, you might find some of the following links useful.
Cuneiform Project Database
Cuneiform Digital Library
Babylonian Clay Tablets
Cuneiform Sign Database
There doesn't seem to be a single database of all the cuneiform tablets so far unearthed and since they number upwards of 300,000, I doubt there will be anytime soon.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Thales
bear cub
Username: Thales
Post Number: 42
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 12:26 pm: | |
Thank you Scott, I shall take a look.
Here are the scans. I used gif format because it is one of those that a browser can show and it does not lose any detail like jpeg does. Gif does lose some colour, but I suppose that is less important here. Resolution is 200 dpi. These files are about 500 KB each.
Side one
Side two
The colours don't seem right, the tablet is more greyish. I include black and white versions, just in case they are more useful. Oddly, these files are about 900 KB each.
Side one
Side two
Nothing you plan is certain until it has happened, and quite often not even then. |
Ted
gatherer
Username: Ted
Post Number: 151
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 9:12 pm: | |
------Here are the scans. I used gif format because it is one of those that a browser can show and it does not lose any detail like jpeg does. Gif does lose some colour, but I suppose that is less important here. Resolution is 200 dpi. These files are about 500 KB each. ------
The jpg format has had a bad press by many people for the wrong reasons.
If a file is copied and recopied in the jpg format, then yes, it will gradually lose detail with each copy, like a photocopy of a photocopy.
A gif can be copied forever, and there will be no loss of detail.
But when the original file is the only one accessed, the only loss occurs with the original save. Even then, I have found that you are usually very, very much better off with jpg than with gif when scanning photographs or real objects such as this.
. For a start, the file size is less. I did a sample change from one of your gifs, and got a file size of around 350 kb.
Using the right software is important too - I use Graphic Converter, which allows you to choose the amount of compression you want, while letting you see what effect the change will have on the detail of the image.
The only time gif will give reasonable results is with a black and white image such as a plan or drawing or similar.
Ted
Do not go gentle into that good night...Rage, rage against the dying of the light |
Per
bear cub
Username: Per
Post Number: 35
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 1:56 am: | |
Check :
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/bxpoma/akkadeng/cuneifor m.htm
http://www.sron.nl/~jheise/akkadian/
I will gladly admit that it doesn't look like anything I could find. It's much more complex than "simple cuneiform" or at least it looks that way.
GIF was made as "Graphical Interchange Format" and as the name imply is great for graphics where as JPEG is "Joint Photographic Experts Group" http://www.jpeg.org/ and as the name imply was created to handle pictures. JPEG files can be copied as often as you like without any effect on the quality, but open it in a program where you edit it and saves it again, you might loose data (from editing). Both formats are compression algorithms and are actually quite good when used "correctly" (depends on the application). |
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