How was CUNEIFORM deciphered? And by whom?
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- Опубліковано 9 лис 2021
- In this Q&A video, Dr. Miano answers a voicemail asking about Mesopotamian cuneiform and how scholars were able to decipher it. Was there are Rosetta Stone that enabled them to crack it?
After viewing, come back to the notes here for further information.
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► REFERENCES
More on the history of cuneiform decipherment:
www.britannica.com/topic/cune...
cdli.ucla.edu/pubs/cdlj/2011/...
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There is something poetic about the efforts of ancient scholars to preserve an extinct or dying language helping modern ones decipher it.
It's kind of amazing that ancient people wanted to preserve the knowledge of even more ancient people.
Yes, well, naturally they didn't think they were ancient. 🙂
I would love to see Dr. Miano and Irving Finkel in an in-person (or even video conference) meeting. I think their personalities and knowledge would mesh so well and be an amazing video!
Hi Glenn, Irving Finkel has some great lectures online, he can be really funny as well. I am sure you know he is an expert on cuneiform and curator at the British Museum. I will leave with a quote from him that always makes me smile..."all the most important artifacts are just on loan around the world...they all end up in British museum eventually" 😉
@@dazuk1969 Yes, I've watched a lot of his online lectures and other video appearances on youtube, and read a few of his books. His sense of humor, story telling skills, and his way of presenting the information are wonderful. Just getting to listen in on a conversation between him and and Dr. Miano would be educational and entertaining.
I know its not relevant to the conversation but Rasmus Rask is the most metal name ever
He also was the first to formulate what would later be termed Grimm's law! Very important in the development of historical linguistics.
Love your videos, Dr. Miano. I am a machinist, about as far as you can get from archaeology. Never went to college. Glad that you and others like you are speaking to everyday people because a lot of us are interested in this stuff! And not in Ancient Aliens or any of that crap.
Keep doing what you’re doing. It makes a difference.
Bless those Mesopotamian Priests who preserved the language for humanity.
𒌁𒂖
Sumerian was spoken like this: pointy pointy pointy , pointy point wedgey point.
Pointy point pointy, point, point, wedgey point... 👍
@@backalleycqc4790 pointy wedge, crack, wedge, pointy point! Lol
(This tablet was broken and badly glued back together)
@@claudiaxander
🤣🤣
Wedgey point!
[edit] Pointy, point-point wedgey lol
@@backalleycqc4790 PWPW!🐫🏹🏝️
That's funny! X'D
I like the fact that this, in contrast to many other educational yt videos, has no music so far.
One can focus more on the subject and your enthusiasm.
Thanks
There are so many videos I want to watch but, cannot because of annoying music. I wish ppl just wouldn't.....
I'm glad you appreciate that. I do have some videos with music, though.
You should interview Prof. Francois Desset. He claims to have deciphered Linear Elamite, which has resisted decipherment attempts for a decade. As far as I know he has already submitted a paper to Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, but it has not yet came out. Would be nice to hear about his process.
You could go on for an hour and I'm still never going to fully understand the process of deciphering a dead language written in a dead script. The fact that people managed to also decipher music and lyrics from cuneiform tablets that are thousands of years old will never cease to amaze me. There's something thrilling about the heating current renditions of millennia old music.
Wow. I didn't even know that I was interested in history until I found this channel. Absolutely superb!
Hi there . I was going to decipher cuneiform, but then things got really busy at work.
Thank you for mentioning the names of the great scholars who helped decipher cuneiform and other languages and have never had their names made public in a big way. Too often people who have contributed so much in helping scholars like yourself continue your research get lost and forgotten in the sands of time. These are people who spent a large part of their careers trying to unlock the secrets of the past. We're so lucky some of them were at least depicted in pictues i.i. drawn, painted or photographed. What is amazing is how some cultures have left us no indication of their language. Thanks to the Summarians and Persians and other cultures to have written down in text events in their everyday lives, it has enabled us to understand a lot more about what life was like all those milenia ago. If I'm correct, a clay tablet in cuneiform was used in the ancient world mostly to document specific transactions; someone selling a sheep for wheat or something they needed. If I'm not wrong, this was the first form of 'money' as coins came into existence later in the Greek culture. Every time we learn something about our past, something changes in our perception of the world in the present.
It's naive to believe that they were successful in deciphering this writing system and foolish not to consider the fact that even it was done correctly it's not like we had a Lexicon of Sumerian or an Ugaritic dictionary. If you put three letters together in an abjad alphabet it's likely that you will get a word.
I randomly selected 3 Arabic letters "mly" and it means ملي "fill." Sound صوخ 3 random letters sod-wa-kh apparently means sound.
Ugaritic has 28 characters they say, same with Arabic yet other cuneiform alphabets are said to have hundreds of characters. Sumerian studies were inspired by the desire to find a non African or Semitic writing system that could be claimed to be older than all others.
So that's what they found. What they wanted. Zechariah Sitchin is a perfect example of how wrong this could go. But whose to say someone did it properly? He's an extreme but proves that people can be deceived by so called translations of cuneiform. Plenty of people believe his interpretation. He can't actually be refuted because it is guess work.
@@yusufg.1281 There is always the possibility that those who research languages of the past may have missed the mark; it's hard to judge without being very knowledgeable about the process they used. Even today people misinterpret what people say to their very faces.
Cynicism is not sophistication.
@@rosc2022 I believe they were influenced by the Bible and Homer and other things. This is why "Baal" is so prominent in "Ugaritic." In reality the word means, "prince, lord, in addition to the first king Babylon according to the ancient Greeks king Belus.
@yusufg.1281 thank you May THE HIGHEST POWER YAHAWAH יהוה bless you In The Name of HIS ONLY WAY Son Yahawasha HamashaYacha יהושע המשיח
@@YahawashaisComing777 You don't even actually know the name of Jesus the Messiah in Hebrew because no Hebrew Gospel exists. According to Iranaeus the name was "2 1/2" letters (yod is considered half a letter) which makes Yeshua not a possibility. ישע or YShA is the only candidate.
Anyone interested in an adventure with cuneiform should read Irving Finkel’s The Ark Before Noah. A truly fascinating read. After reading the book and watching Irving's enthusiastic lectures on YT, I decided to order a book on cuneiform...which I need the time to open...
I adore ADORE IRVING FINKEL! He is perfection 🤩🤣
I saw the video about it, he really is the quintessential English eccentric.
Dr Josh of Digital Hammurabi has published a book on Sumerian grammar etc.
{:-:-:}
OMG, the existence of a cuneiform-derived cursive blew my mind, I'm almost indignant I hadn't been shown that before! Gorgeous, just gorgeous!
Huh, sounds interesting
The History Channel or PBS or someone should give you a show. This rocks.
Amazing video. I worry about what happens when all this in formation is lost again. A slow moving, modern cataclysm where no value is placed on this knowledge and young people decide not to study it in favour of more "marketable" degrees. The university where I worked for 18 years (UWA in Perth) just shut down the anthropology department. Imagine a future in a few generations time, where (possibly after a big solar storm and all the electronic records having been destroyed) you'll have people marvelling at these clay tablets, wondering what on earth they mean.
That is tragic.
Thank you for this video. The decipherment of a language that is neither spoken nor written by any living being surely stands at or near the peak of human intellectual achievement.
Excellent summary. I didn't realize so many scholars were involved.
2:13 Let's take a moment to wonder at the sheer awesomeness of the name Rasmus Rask. Second only to the astronomer Vesto Slipher who had the personality to match the name.
When I see the name Rasmus Rask, I think of the many Danes and their relatives who have the last name Rasmussen, or son of Rasmus.
One of my first books looking into the Ancient Near East was by A. H. Sayce. And he used ethnonyms so differently; I was so confused! I think they didn't even know about the Sumerians back then.
I recently finished reading a book by Mogens Trolle Larsen entitled, " The Conquest of Assyria: Excavations in an Antique Land." It was very interesting to hear accounts of the people and politics involved in some of the early ruins and the deciphering of cuneiform. It is told in an interesting, almost narrative format. Toward the end it was starting to drag on a bit but a lot of detail and a bit of insight into the rivalries of the early investigators was fascinating.
Excellent video (as usual) and thanks for simplifying the contributions of Edward Hincks and and Sir Henry Rawlinson, I've read of their contributions before but they always sound so complicated lol
I love that I always learn something new and interesting from your videos.
4:33 is there some recommended reading I (a complete stranger to this field) could pick up and learn a few things about how exactly they went about figuring these things out ? It sounds so fascinating !
Great work on these videos, I'm enjoying these a lot !
Check out the notes below the video.
Fascinating. Thank you Dr. Miano
Excellent and clear summary. Thank you.
Hey now World of Antiquity, logged in to watch this again and noticed you have hit 20k subs...congratulations. Academic content is the hardest nut to crack on YT. I wish you all continued success....This is the point advertisers will take you seriously. David, please dont start selling VPNs or ear buds 😉
Ha, probably more like books or glasses. Thanks, Darren!
@@WorldofAntiquity 👍
Great video once again!!!!!
Love your explanation, thanks
Bravo. Education comes hard to some...but informed clarity is its greatest ally.
Thanks for the very well put answer !!
One of the better channels these days!
The implications of that is interesting. There are many problems in reading cuneiform however. Even more so than today it was situational and regional. Then there's the noun confusion too. I tried to help translate 1700s American writing and it really opened my eyes to the difficulties these scholars must face
I really love what you do, Dr. Miano! Even if I miss a video and only see it 3 weeks later, LOL!
I am happy to hear you are enjoying them, Mary Ann!
Thanks for explaining this :)
Thank you, very informative & interesting!!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
A rarely spoken truth as told by Sir Henry Rawlinson himself was that he used an Ethiopian language to decipher cuneiform. This provided more evidence that the biblical account of Sumerians being Kushite colonists was accurate.
Imagine if the Ancient Egyptians tried writing their own language in cuneiform. If we found a tablet like that it might allow us to reconstruct the original language, vowels and all with great confidence since it's a syllabic script.
They did I'm certain, but we haven't yet found representations of both. Commoners could read in Egypt 3000 years ago though. ( graffiti, one actually reads " the boss is a jerk)
😃 Neato! I learned interesting stuff that I never knew that I didn't know.
Perfectly succinct analysis.
The Best Dialogue comes from a good question.. Often times we are so busy going with the norm that we forget to ask questions such as this one, “Who Translated the Cuneiform and who gave the history a Biblical Narrative?”
Outstanding video!! Take my subscription sir
Thank you!
Love the artifact concept series!! Can you consider the Dead Sea scrolls!?
The series is about single artifacts, so it would have to be one scroll.
Thank you so much...Doctor
Love this! Teaching my 3 year old to write cuneiform this summer! Thanks Dr. Shrieb’s Near Eastern studies at Dominican University of California.
Very interesting thank you. The proto Elamite script is getting to the new topic and the new study shows it's invented as the same time as the Sumerian or maybe older.
Thank you!
Always had an interest in cuneiform and its origins. How I know a little bit more. Great stuff WOA.
Fascinating, thank you.
(And now for the very pedantic and totally minor point of pronunciation, everyone's favorite, about Thureau-Dangin: there is no "th" sound in French, it is simply pronounced "t". The rest was pretty good though, and since my English pronunciation is absolutely terrible, I should really not make comments like this one.)
Ah, thank you for reminding me!
Cursive cuneiform!! 🤯
How is this not more widely spoken of
Very interesting! Maybe not to everyone but I like it!
In the encyclopedia "Naturalis Historia" written by the Roman author Pliny is written: "According to Epigenes, the Sumerian astronomical observations recorded on clay tablets are 720,000 years old". So the Greek knew already before our era about clay tablets and they did translate them. And they confirm that very long ago a civilization existed that recorded information about the stars.
And yet the astronomical observations are not that old, so it demonstrates that the Greeks were getting their information secondhand.
That was very interesting 🧐😊.
Thanks. Glad you think so!
The Assyrians used cuneiform on their reliefs: there are casts of such, here in the Bristol City Museum.
That's true. They did.
awesome! I would like to know more about Jaroslav Černý, the czech egyptologist
We have a guy here in Ireland who decifers cuneiform into English for the marvel movies. It has not been spoken in two thousand year's until now. ☘️
Ancient Demons with Irving Finkel is a must watch. This rulzzz
I really liked this video! I had no clue cuneiform wasn’t even an actual language.
Great video, I had wondered about how this was done. That Old Persian is related to Sanskrit brings to mind things I vaguely understand about Indo-European. Was Rasmus Rask before or after the discovery of the relationship between European languages and Sanskrit?
He was after.
I wish more of the limitations about working backwards to deciphering ancient languages are. There's still a lot we don't understand and can't confirm. For instance, you say today we can read Sumerian quite read, but that needs to be coupled with the fact we still aren't sure we know what things mean or if we have accurate understanding since, for instance, cultural and social contexts also impact language construction and understanding. Any directions to understanding these limitations and gaps would be appreciated.
Oh, there's a podcast called "The Ancient World".
Personally I don't recommend, except for the second (R) series it did from Abril 2014 to September 2014, it's much about the story of "assyriology". There you can find how cuneiform, sumerian, akkadian and much more was "discovered" and deciphered.
I can see how it evolved to modern scripts from the cursive form. 📜
Danke!
Thank you!
Hi David, great video. Any more information on the graphic around 5:03? Is this meant to indicate that there are ways of writing cuneiform in a medium closer to pen and paper in addition to clay? Would love to hear more about it if so, surveys, sources, etc.
Yes, there is a cursive form that a lot of people don't realize. It's not super common and was used in later times.
@@WorldofAntiquity you should do a video on it before the ancient aliens or Atlantis crowd discovers it (if not already) and start linking it to far eastern civilizations and using it to expand their wonky theories
Would like to hear more about old Persian’s relatedness to Sanskrit.
Hi Dr Miano, i'm enjoying your views so far but i would love to know your thoughts on the megalithic stones worldwide, specifically Baalbek (800 tons) The Megaliths under the Temple Mount which they found after building a tunnel under the Mount (400 ton) and The Temple of the Sun in Peru, around 80 to 120 tons and that one was cut out of a mountain, carried down and over a river and back up a mountain. We could for sure do it today, however, the evidence would be all over the mountain like roads or rail and cranes ect ect. The mystery here is how they did it leaving no infrastructure behind. My own view is all the megalith are pre Melt Water Pulse 1 B and misdated and misidentified and i say this because i don't know of a culture in antiquity that had the technology to accomplish the cutting and shaping of these stones. A huge tell is the Romans seeing the unfinished stone of the pregnant lady and 2 further did no work to requarry the stone, neither did all the cultures going back to the pre Cananites. I look forward to your response Sir. Many Thanks
NEW ELAMITE? I thought the Assyrians destroyed Elam and salted all its lands, and the Persians then were able to move in. Now we got NEW ELAMITE existing until Alexander the Great? Ugh! LOL -- don't have time to go down that rabbit hole now, maybe over the weekend.
It is just so strange that Sumerian is a language isolate but as far as we know the first writing system.
Makes one wonder if there are other language families that are being overlooked due to cultural bias along with the change over time of sounds. Perhaps a Bantu family?
This is another fascinating exploration how history has been and is being evaluated. In the 1974-76 period, when Iran was welcoming, I made a point of visiting the site of the Behistun Monument [fortunately with a telephoto lense], and Persepolis. My belief at the time was the one dismissed in this video, that the inscription was important in translating the earlier Cuneiform writings. It is important for people to understand and accept that newer findings or revisiting older beliefs may require an intelligent person to reevaluate and change outmoded ideas.
I noticed that giving credit where it was due, didn't include taking down one of the great fakers of pseudo-history, Zecharia Sitchin. Perhaps you will consider a takedown of pseudo-history and pseudo-historians past and present. There are certainly numerous representatives currently producing nonsense UA-cam videos. Sometimes they are humorous, but they may be dangerous as they ditch critical thinking in favor of putting belief above evidence [or dismissing evidence altogether].
Thanks again for a wonderful and informative video.
You might enjoy this video of mine addressing a claim by Sitchin: ua-cam.com/video/9Sch8CYWjtc/v-deo.html
@@WorldofAntiquity Yes, I watched it, and even made a comment. I should have noted that. I just intended to suggest the need for more debunking. My grad program to become a historian was terminated by the Kent State university closures, and when resumed I transitioned to a new major with more employment possibilities.
I have actually found the site Digital Hammuri by the Bowens very interesting as they actually know the ancient languages. and teach those languages as well as the ancient literature. This might be of interest to you and your viewers.
Very good and informative. In the beginning there was this mention of Sanskrit language. Can you elaborate on the language Sanskrit. Could you. God bless you.
The idea of a syllabic language is kind of mind-blowing. I'd imagine a language like that would almost automatically have a limited lifespan as a living useful language, what with phenomena like consonant shift and whatnot.
Well, we have to differentiate between the script and the language. All languages have syllables, but not all scripts are syllabic. You could use cuneiform to write English, if you wanted to.
how did they actually desiphter the cuneiform what was the key? In egyptian it was coptic and the Rossetta stone. The first step was to find the cartouche then the suffixpronouns etc.
What's the picture in the background at 5:00? Looks like a decent way of noting cuneiform signs on paper yet google remains silent 🤔
0:25 The stone was written by Greek invaders. Although many scholars wrote multiple clay tablets.
Not sure where did you find the term "New Elamite," the proper is Neo-Elamite. However, Behistun inscription (and all Achaemenid inscriptions or tablets) is actually in Achaemenid Elamite, which differs from the earlier Neo-Elamite. Nevertheless, Neo- and Achaemenid Elamite are just phases of the same language, Elamite, so not independent languages. Also, Elamite script is basically the same as regular cuneiform script: there are slight differences in shape forms, but signs are the same, essentially Elamite signs (ca. 600 signs used in different periods) are a subset of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform (ca. 800 signs).
As an Assyrian we believe that the Akkadians and the Assyrians are one nation. Sargon I was the founder of the Akkadian empire, and Sargon II was the Assyrian king who spread the kingdom to the end of the Middle East.
What is your opinion on Indus valley script, prof.Miano ?
I wish we could read it.
I still didn't understand when the 3 languages discovered in Iran were in Cuneiform (Old persian, new elamite and sumerian) then how they did know that the 1st was alphabetic and the other two were in syllables. then how did know that this sign means sa or ma or mi for example or how did this alphabet (in old persian) would mean a or b? if one of the 3 languages lets say was aramaic or hebrew with known alphabet then we could relate to it coz that same script written in those 3 languages so now we know this sign means a and that means b but all of them were unknow to us so i didnt get it... any help?
The egos of kings made changes thw scollars scribes had to adjust & retain all
Outstanding video! Because it happens to address the crux of my greatest, albeit unlikely to be achieved aspirarion, namely, to learn Akkadian, I was delighted with the data you have shared with us, pertaining to the progressive decipherment of the pecious language(s) of our archaic, cultural ancestors... In this connection, please note that, for the past three, nearly four years I have plunged upon studying as much as feasible regarding the Ancient Mesopotamians (despite my original dislike for the civilization which is, unfortunately, currently populating the region), given that I have fallen in love with these ancient cultures... My extraordinary interest is particularly focused upon two of its three main components: Sumeria and specially, by beloved Assyria! (While their extreme brutality astonishes me, this negative aspect of their ethos is completely outweighed by the splendor of their culture, specially Aššurbānipal's contributions)
However, since I am nearly as ancient :-) as the Mesopotamians themselves, so to speak, after I made an effort to follow an Akkadian lesson in UA-cam, I came to realize the extreme difficulty involved in learning its excedingly diffult scripts. But I digress... I must applaud you for your meticulous research on this wondrous topic, and thank you so much for this splendid upload. BRAVO!
In the highly unlikely event that you might have the time, let alone the interest, to do me a tiny favor, I would greatly appreciate if your were in a position to point out more of Assyrian, or Akkadian cuneiform related videos within your vast video library or in some of those belonging to many of your UA-cam assotiates. Cheers!
I haven't gotten a list put together, but I plan on producing more videos on these topics.
@@WorldofAntiquity I shall be looking forward to watching them. Thanks for your kind response.
My recommendation if you want to learn Akkadian is to jump in! Don't let the scripts intimidate you. There's a very accessible introduction by Martin Worthington called Complete Babylonian, and a superb, more complete grammar of the language by John Huehnergard called A Grammar of Akkadian. A motivated independent learner who's able to acquire either of these books can definitely master the fundamentals. (It sounds like you want to read Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions, or documents preserved in Aššurbānipal's library, but virtually all of this is written in the literary Standard Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, not in Assyrian, so I guarantee Babylonian is where you want to start.) To be honest, it's a good idea to become familiar with the language in transliteration, meaning in the Latin script, before you start trying to master the cuneiform signs anyway, because the more familiar you are with the "shapes" of Akkadian words, the easier it will be to make sense of the scripts. And here's a secret: modern editions of documents in Akkadian are almost entirely written in transliteration, meaning in Latin script; you have to track down hand-drawn copies of texts, published separately, to even read the cuneiform. The most extensive Akkadian dictionary, the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, is available for free online and is entirely in transliteration. You can go a long way in Akkadian before you even get to the cuneiform; no reason not to try!
(Also: What's wrong with modern Iraqis? Scratch that--I absolutely don't want to know.)
@@lilith4924 Thank you SO MUCH for your comprehensive, illuminating reply. Indeed, I firstly became obsessed with Sumer, particularly because of their antiquity, and becauses they invented civilization itself!!!
Later, I fell in love in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-612 BCE). Despite the great personal risk (they could be dangerous), if I could travel in time, I would love to see Nineveh, where, by the way, the real Hanging Gardens were built! It appears that Sennacherib (who reigned from 705 to 681 BCE) built those amazing gardens!.
(My personal dislike is not directly related to Iraq, but rather to Islam!)
ua-cam.com/video/7yyZ6UFtoHo/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/7BlahCu-baA/v-deo.html
By the way, I could not find any of the works you suggested for free. Could you provide me the link?
Thanks in Advance
Who knew there'd be a Vivian Stanshall connection in a video about cuneiform
That is a very niche joke. 🙂
Wow thnx alot and the whole list of scollars without Zechariah Sitchin
I understand many of the cuneiform writings are akkaedian. If i want to read only the Sumerian, what should i read?
Search: David D. Olmsted, "Penptah (Tabnit) Sarcophagus Text from Sidon is
a Phoenician / Israelite Debate over the Great
Bronze Age Drought (1170 BCE) - Updated"
He makes a plausible translation of "Phoenician" viewed through the lens of "Alphabetic Akkadian" implying a lineage of language
I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform
And tell you every detail of Caractacus’s uniform
Pirates of Penzance?
I think it is fascinating that Sumerian basically was decyphered by using ancient Akkadian textbooks :)
Are there computer programs that translates these languages?
I wonder how much (or little) of our records (particularly the electronicals) could be read in 2500 years 🤔
It depends on how many clues we leave.
Cuneiform was for writing on clay. The Phoenician alphabet is for writing on paper. The more effecient writing system of the Phoenicians depended on the more efficient (easier to store, I suppose) medium of paper, or papyrus, or whatever. Maybe the people who used cuneiform didn't have access to paper, or didn't know how to make it?
I'm only an enthusiast here so no one need take this very seriously, but while comparing Asian script to the European alphabet I came to the opposite conclusion. Asia appears to have developed paper writing very early which allowed very detailed symbols for more complex ideas, and a vast array of symbols. Cuneiform, written on wet clay, did not allow for such finesse and required a simpler form of expression, an alphabet, with far fewer symbols. I don't know that an alphabet with 26 characters is more efficient, but it is certainly easier to learn than kanji with 50,000 characters.
It's a good thing they didn't use it, because clay tablets have a longer shelf life.
Unfortunately during Gulf War 2 the museum was sacked & tablets & instructions were scattered 4ever.
What of them now?
Chine form is many characters.
Thousands with arrows in all directions.
😍 Do you think Sumerian is the oldest language from its region, given it’s an isolate? Any thoughts on why it’s not Semitic but the later regional languages are, even to this day?
it would be better if the option for subtitled translation in other languages was enabled.
There is no option for that.
@@WorldofAntiquity when i watch videon on youtube in other languages, i can activate the option of simultaneous subtitled translation. I will try to continue watching your videos. Thanks a lot.
🤠💜
It's very similar to an Indian dialect
After watching this, I’m convinced there is no way they could’ve translated those symbols lol. Truly, how do you look at symbols and then just ascribe English letters?
Sounds. Not letters.
It was Edward Hincks who had the brains and did the real figuring out. Rawlinson stole his work basically
HI know Hammurabi was Akkadian, but the custom of displaying cuneiform on big stelae for everybody to read is far more ancient than the Behistun monument
That's correct.
Maltese is the oldest still currently used language on earth.