[MUSIC].

Okay, today we're going to look at

cuneiform, the oldest written script in
the world.
we're going to cover briefly a little bit
of the history of the script and the
various languages that it was used to
write.
And then also talk a little about what
else is written in the script.
And then, we'll actually do a little
practical part where we learn how to make
tablets and you're going to be able to
write your own name in a tablet.
>> Yeah.
So basically, cuneiform, we have evidence
for cuneiform starting from 3000 BC, so
about 5000 years ago.
And some of our early evidence is kind of
boring, economic, administrative things.
but then pretty quickly, we get some very
interesting literary text, historical
text.
And this writing system is used
throughout the Middle East basically
until zero.
So, for 3,000 years the cuneiform writing
system is used to write not only Sumerian,
what it was developed to, to write, but
also Akkadian which is the Semitic
language.
>> Right.
>> Related to Hebrew, Arabic, things
like that.
>> Yeah, that's actually a great point
about the history.
If you think of the very last scribes who
were writing in cuneiform in Babylon in
southern Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq.
They are actually closer to us in modern
day than they are to the inventors of
cuneiform.
So, cuneiform has such a long history
that its last practitioners are actually
closer to us than the inventors of the
script.
Which is really amazing when you think
about it.
>> It is pretty amazing.
and we also have some amazing pieces of
literature in cuneiform.
So, you may have heard of the Epic of
Gilgamesh or the Laws of Hammurabi.
And all those things are written in
cuneiform in Akkadian and they survive to
us today on clay tablets.
So we dig up clay tablets from the ground
in Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
and they come up kind of looking like
this, a little bit you know, broken and,
and shabby.
but scholars piece them together to make
them whole.
>> And one of the really amazing things
about tablets, which is really relevant
for archaeology, is that the material
they're made out of is clay from the
rivers in Mesopotamia, the Euphrates and
Tigris.
And what happens is, is when these things
are made, they, they dry in the sun.
And often, they're burned or they're
fired when the buildings they're within
are destroyed.
And that basically turns them rock hard,
which means they survive incredibly well
in the archaeological record.
So in other civilizations, and certainly
in later Mesopotamia, other places around
the world where civilizations wrote on
papyrus,
or other types of material that really
degrade very quickly in the environment,
we're very lucky in Mesopotamia that
these clay tablets were fired,
turned rock hard, were buried in the
sand, and that we're able to dig them out
now.
And as a result, we have hundreds of
thousands of documents still many of them
which have never even been looked at by
modern scholars.
So, there's a wealth of information still
left to translate and discover.
So as Zach mentioned earlier, the old one
of the pieces cuneiform literature is the
Epic of Gilgamesh.
And this is something you might have
heard of.
Tt's something that's been translated in
modern day and there's a couple popular
editions around.
And it's a really fascinating story that
we have preserved from tablets, which
really reigns the whole history of
cuneiform literature.
So, we have it written in Sumerian, in
Hittite, and Akkadian all using the
cuneiform script.
And it comes from sort of second
millennium BC all the way down to the end
of cuneiform literature.
And it's this amazing story of this epic
king, this mythological king of the city
of Uruk who is really dealing with issues
of his own mortality.
And he goes on this sort of long journey
where he defeats these monsters with his
best friend.
And then his best friend dies, and he
mourns.
And then, he tries to basically attain
immortal life because he doesn't want to
deal with death.
And at the end, he realizes he can't do
that.
And the ending of the story is all about
how man's deeds live on in their
creations and in, in their text and their
name.
And so, it's a very relevant story for
the modern day, but it's preserved from
these ancient texts that are 4,000 years
old.
So, it's really quite remarkable.
>> It's pretty amazing that we have
cuneiform literature from, like Willis
said, 4,000 years ago that is relevant to
modern day.
We also have things that are written in
cuneiform in the modern day by scholars
of cuneiform.
Willis and I actually ourselves were
commissioned to do a translation of a
Dirty Projector song.
you may have heard of it The Gun Has No
Trigger.
>> Yeah.
So, we worked with the band and we looked
at their lyrics, in English, and then we
worked on translating them in Akkadian.
And then, writing them in cuneiform, and
then they actually used them on the vinyl
record for the single.
So it's a way of bringing this ancient
writing system into the present, and sort
of getting it out to a wider audience.
Because cuneiform is really pretty much
the coolest thing around.