a. Describe the four ideas you found most interesting in the article.
1. The Sumerians were nomads (wanderers) and did not live in or even know what houses were, and they did not grow wheat like other people did at that time.
2. No man could have ever written a single letter of an alphabet unless they knew of or were familiar with some kind of functioning writing system. I've never thought about that before, that if someone was not familiar with any writing system then they could have easily made marks or scratches that resembled letters or words, and they had no idea what they were really writing.
3. It's amazing how the Sumerians combined sounds to express an idea. Different signs made different sounds and they joined these sounds together to portray an idea of thing that was difficult to represent.
4. The Babylonian scribes developed a writing system that did not contain an alphabet. Years later, they refused to make changes to their system of writing. That's crazy because almost all alphabets and writing systems have evolved so much over time, because people wanted a change. But the Babylonians saw it differently.
b. Find at least two articles on the web related to the topic of cuneiform writing. List the URL's.
1. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/146558/cuneiform#tab=active~checked%2Citems~checked&title=cuneiform%20--%20Britannica%20Online%20Encyclopedia
2. http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/tablets/tab.htm
3. http://www.crystalinks.com/cuneiformtablets.html
c. List the key words/concepts you found in this article.
Pictographic
Symbols
Ideographs
Signs
Hieroglyphic
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2 comments:
Beth,
What are these types of marks called? – “if someone was not familiar with any writing system then they could have easily made marks or scratches that resembled letters or words, and they had no idea what they were really writing”. Did the creators of cuneiform use these types of marks?
Can you give an example or two of this…? ‘It's amazing how the Sumerians combined sounds to express an idea. Different signs made different sounds and they joined these sounds together to portray an idea of thing that was difficult to represent’.
What components were missing that prevented their writings from becoming an alphabet…? ‘The Babylonian scribes developed a writing system that did not contain an alphabet’.
Your report is good but too basic..dig deeper and give me your personal feedback or new information related to what you read in the article.ß
Excellent in-depth Britannica web site.
Interesting and entertaining site.. http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/tablets/tab.htm
Should we try making our own cuneiform tablets in class?
The Crystal links site is very intriguing, and contains good graphic examples of original cuneiform tablets..very interested in the new translation of the ancient tablet.
http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/tablets/tab.htm
When I wrote “if someone was not familiar with any writing system then they could have easily made marks or scratches that resembled letters or words, and they had no idea what they were
really writing”,
that was just my personal thought. I figured that has probably happened to many people back then. And many years later when alphabets were established, those scratches and marks might have become actual symbols or letters. Maybe the people that developed writing systems experimented with marks and scratches to find what symbols worked better than others.
I could only find one example in the article.
If a scribe wanted to write the name "Kuraka," all he had to do was draw the symbol for mountain which was pronounced kur, the symbol for water which was pronounced a, and the symbol for mouth which was pronounced ka. And then combine them together to pronounce Kuraka. And he would put a little mark in front of the word Kuraka to indicate that it did not mean mountain or mouth or water, but that it was it's own name.
The article says that "Their civilization was cut off prematurely- so that they had no time for a complete development." They also did not want to give up their traditions that they had been using for so many years.
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