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Elamite Cuneiform
Elamite cuneiform was a logo-syllabic script used to write the Elamite language. The corpus of Elamite cuneiform consists of tablets and fragments. The majority were created during the Achaemenid era, and contain primarily economic records. History and decipherment The Elamite language (c. 2600 BCE to 400 BCE), is the now-extinct language spoken by Elamites, who inhabited the regions of Khūzistān and Fārs in Southern Iran. It has long been an enigma for scholars due to the scarcity of resources for its research and the irregularities found in the language. It seems to have no relation to its neighboring Semitic and Indo-European languages.Starostin, George (2002) Scholars fiercely argue over several hypotheses about its origin, but have no definite theory. Elamite cuneiform comes in two variants, the first, derived from Akkadian, was used during the 3rd to 2nd millennia BCE, and a simplified form used during the 1st millennium BCE.Khačikjan (1998) The main difference b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Shutruk-Nahhunte
Shutruk-Nakhunte (sometimes Nahhunte) was king of Elam from about 1184 to 1155 BC (middle chronology), and the second king of the Shutrukid Dynasty. Elam amassed an empire that included most of Mesopotamia and western Iran. Under his command, Elam defeated the Kassites and established the short-lived Elamite Empire, conquered within about 40 years by Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon, in 1120 BC. Šutruk-Nakhunte was married to the daughter of a Kassite king named Meli-Šipak. Invasion of Babylonia Shutruk-Nakhunte invaded Mesopotamia and was able to carry off many monuments from Babylon, such as the Stele of Naram-Sin. His invasion of Babylon likely had to do with the overthrow of the royal Kassite family into whom the Elamites had intermarried for decades. The overthrow of Shutruk-Nakhunte's father-in-law Meli-Shipak II, who lost the throne to Zababa-shuma-iddin, would have given enough justification to Shutruk-Nakhunte to attack Babylon. The cause of Meli-Shipak II's death ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Naram-Sin Of Akkad
Naram-Sin, also transcribed Narām-Sîn or Naram-Suen (: '' DNa-ra-am D Sîn'', meaning "Beloved of the Moon God Sîn", the "𒀭" a determinative marking the name of a god; died 2218 BC), was a ruler of the Akkadian Empire, who reigned –2218 BC ( middle chronology), and was the third successor and grandson of King Sargon of Akkad. Under Naram-Sin the empire reached its maximum extent. He was the first Mesopotamian king known to have claimed divinity for himself, taking the title "God of Akkad", and the first to claim the title " King of the Four Quarters". His military strength was strong as he crushed revolts and expanded the empire to places like Turkey and Iran. He became the patron city god of Akkade as Enlil was in Nippur. His enduring fame resulted in later rulers, Naram-Sin of Eshnunna and Naram-Sin of Assyria as well as Naram-Sin of Uruk, assuming the name. Biography Naram-Sin was a son of Manishtushu. He was thus a nephew of King Rimush and grandson of Sarg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Affricate
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. English has two affricate phonemes, and , often spelled ''ch'' and ''j'', respectively. Examples The English sounds spelled "ch" and "j" ( broadly transcribed as and in the IPA), German and Italian ''z'' and Italian ''z'' are typical affricates, and sounds like these are fairly common in the world's languages, as are other affricates with similar sounds, such as those in Polish and Chinese. However, voiced affricates other than are relatively uncommon. For several places of articulation they are not attested at all. Much less common are labiodental affricates, such as in German, Kinyarwanda and Izi, or velar affricates, such as in Tswana (written ''kg'') or in High Alemannic Swiss German dialects. Worldwide, relative ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Determinative
A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may derive historically from glyphs for real words, and functionally they resemble classifiers in East Asian and sign languages. For example, Egyptian hieroglyphic determinatives include symbols for divinities, people, parts of the body, animals, plants, and books/abstract ideas, which helped in reading but were not pronounced. Cuneiform In cuneiform texts of Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite languages, many nouns are preceded or followed by a Sumerian word acting as a determinative; this specifies that the associated word belongs to a particular semantic group.Edzard, 2003 These determinatives were not pronounced. In transliterations of Sumerian, the determinatives are written in superscript in upper case. Whether a given sign is a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in Vowel length, quantity (length). They are usually voice (phonetics), voiced and are closely involved in Prosody (linguistics), prosodic variation such as tone (linguistics), tone, intonation (linguistics), intonation and Stress (linguistics), stress. The word ''vowel'' comes from the Latin word , meaning "vocal" (i.e. relating to the voice). In English, the word ''vowel'' is commonly used to refer both to vowel sounds and to the written symbols that represent them (, , , , , and sometimes and ). Definition There are two complementary definitions of vowel, one Phonetics, phonetic and the other Phonology, phonological. *In the phonetic definition, a vowel is a sound, such as the English language, English "ah" or "oh" , produ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and [b], pronounced with the lips; and [d], pronounced with the front of the tongue; and [g], pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced throughout the vocal tract; , [v], , and [z] pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and and , which have air flowing through the nose (nasal consonant, nasals). Most consonants are Pulmonic consonant, pulmonic, using air pressure from the lungs to generate a sound. Very few natural languages are non-pulmonic, making use of Ejective consonant, ejectives, Implosive consonant, implosives, and Click consonant, clicks. Contrasting with consonants are vowels. Since the number of speech sounds in the world's languages is much greater than the number of letters in any one alphabet, Linguis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Babylonian Language
Akkadian ( ; )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages''. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218–280 was an East Semitic languages, East Semitic language that is attested in ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad (region), Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa, Babylonia and perhaps Dilmun) from the mid-3rd millennium BC, third millennium BC until its gradual replacement in common use by Old Aramaic language, Old Aramaic among Assyrians and Babylonians from the 8th century BC. Akkadian, which is the earliest documented Semitic languages, Semitic language, is named after the city of Akkad (city), Akkad, a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire (–2154 BC). It was written using the cuneiform script, originally used for Sumerian language, Sumerian, but also used to write multiple languages in the region including Eblaite language, Eblaite, Hurrian language, Hurrian, Elamite lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Georg Friedrich Grotefend
Georg Friedrich Grotefend (9 June 1775 – 15 December 1853) was a German epigraphist and philologist. He is known mostly for his contributions toward the decipherment of cuneiform. Georg Friedrich Grotefend had a son, named Carl Ludwig Grotefend, who played a key role in the decipherment of the Indian Kharoshthi script on the coinage of the Indo-Greek kings, around the same time as James Prinsep, publishing ''Die unbekannte Schrift der Baktrischen Münzen'' ("The unknown script of the Bactrian coins") in 1836. Life He was born at Hann. Münden and died in Hanover. He was educated partly in his native town, partly at Ilfeld, where he remained until 1795, when he entered the University of Göttingen, and there became the friend of Heyne, Tychsen and Heeren. Heyne's recommendation procured for him an assistant mastership in the Göttingen gymnasium in 1797. While there he published his work ''De pasigraphia sive scriptura universali'' (1799), which led to his appointm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Old Persian
Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (Iranian).''cf.'' , p. 2. Old Persian is close to both Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit, and all three languages are highly inflected. Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets and seals of the Achaemenid era ( to 300 BCE). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran, Romania ( Gherla), Armenia, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt, with the most important attestation by far being the contents of the Behistun Inscription (dated to 522 BCE). In 2007, research into the vast Persepolis Administrative Archives at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago unearthed Old Persian tablets, which suggest Old Persian was a written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display. Orig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is a stele of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of ancient Egypt, Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian using Egyptian hieroglyphs, hieroglyphic and Demotic (Egyptian), Demotic scripts, respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The decree has only minor differences across the three versions, making the Rosetta Stone key to decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts, deciphering the Egyptian scripts. The stone was carved during the Hellenistic period and is believed to have originally been displayed within a temple, possibly at Sais, Egypt, Sais. It was probably moved in late antiquity or during the Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo), Mamluk period, and was eventually used as building material in the construction of Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta. It was found there in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions
The Achaemenid royal inscriptions are the surviving inscriptions in cuneiform script from the Achaemenid Empire, dating from the 6th to 4th century BCE (reigns of Cyrus the Great, Cyrus II to Artaxerxes III). These inscriptions are primary sources for the history of the empire, along with archaeological evidence and the administrative archives of Persepolis. However, scholars are reliant on Greek sources (such as Herodotus) to reconstruct much of Achaemenid history. The Achaemenid royal inscriptions differ from earlier Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions in their multilingualism, rhetorical style and their structure.Matthew W. Stolper: ''Achämenid Languages and Inscriptions.'' In: John E. Curtis, Nigel Tallis (Hrsg.): ''Forgotten Empire. The World of Ancient Persia.'' University of California Press, Berkeley/ Los Angeles 2005, S. 18–24. The inscriptions are mostly trilingual – in Old Persian cuneiform, Old Persian, Elamite cuneiform, Elamite and Akkadian language, Babylo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the List of largest empires#Timeline of largest empires to date, largest empire by that point in history, spanning a total of . The empire spanned from the Balkans and ancient Egypt, Egypt in the west, most of West Asia, the majority of Central Asia to the northeast, and the Indus Basin, Indus Valley of South Asia to the southeast. Around the 7th century BC, the region of Persis in the southwestern portion of the Iranian plateau was settled by the Persians. From Persis, Cyrus rose and defeated the Medes, Median Empire as well as Lydia and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, marking the establishment of a new imperial polity under the Achaemenid dynasty. In the modern era, the Achaemenid Empire has been recognised for its imposition of a succ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
