Sumerians invented a hieroglyphic, which was later developed into cuneiform. This is one of the oldest known human characters. Today, hundreds of thousands of Sumerian objects have been excavated, most of which are carved on clay tablets. These include personal and business letters, remittances, cookbooks, encyclopedias, laws, hymns, prayers, spells and scientific articles including mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Many large buildings, such as large sculptures, are also engraved with words. Multiple versions of many articles have been preserved because they are often copied (for example, as writing exercises). Copying was the only way for people to spread articles at that time. After Sumerians became the rulers of Mesopotamia, Sumerian remained the language of religion and law.
Even experts find it difficult to understand Sumerian writing. Especially the early Sumerian characters are very difficult, because they usually do not contain all grammatical structures. 1472, an Italian named Balot, while traveling in ancient Persia, which is today's Iran, saw a strange and unprecedented font on the broken walls of some ancient temples near Shiraz. Almost all these fonts have triangular tips, which look like nails and wooden wedges. Some of them are lying on their sides, some are pointing up or down, some are inclined, and they look like sharp nails. Balot was very surprised. Is this writing? Or something else? He returned to Italy with this question. However, no one was interested in his discovery in West Asia at that time, and people soon forgot about it. What Europeans don't know is that this is cuneiform.
More than a hundred years later, another Italian visited Shiraz. This is Valle. Valle is more diligent than Balot. He copied down the fonts on these ruins. Later, he found this font carved on the clay tablet in the ancient ruins of Iraq today, so he decided that it must be the writing of ancient West Asians. Valle brought his discovery back to Europe. He introduced Europeans to such strange writing for the first time.
Through nearly 200 years of archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia and the successful translation and reading of a large number of clay tablets by linguists, people finally know that cuneiform is the oldest known writing in the world. This is a unique writing system, which was invented by ancient Sumerians and inherited and reformed by Akkadians. Babylonians and Assyrians also successively inherited this valuable cultural heritage and spread it to other parts of West Asia. The earliest cuneiform seen by westerners is the cuneiform modified by Persians in the Iranian plateau, which is very different from the cuneiform used by Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians.
However, how cuneiform originated has always been an unsolved mystery in the history of human culture. This question has been debated for nearly two centuries. For a long time, the following two views prevailed.
Traditional archaeologists and historians believe that cuneiform originated from the special fishing and hunting lifestyle in Mesopotamia. This is a general view, which is held by most encyclopedias in the west.
Some scholars hold different views that the origin of cuneiform characters is closely related to the developed social organizations in ancient Sumerian areas. The General History of the World compiled by the Academy of Sciences of the former Soviet Union holds this view. When discussing the invention of cuneiform, the book wrote: "The greatest achievement of people's culture in the two river basins is the creation of characters. In the middle of 4000 BC, Sumerians had written embryos. For administrative management, organized communication is more needed, so the embryo of this text becomes a real text. " The above two viewpoints have coexisted for a long time and are at loggerheads.
However, since 1970s, archaeological astronomers have put forward an explosive view that cuneiform originated from an astronomical event 6000 years ago-the Vela X supernova explosion, which has caused a new round of debate on the origin of cuneiform in the world academic circles.
This view originated from the hypothesis of a Sumerian expert. George Micha Noszky, a Sumerian expert, discovered a phenomenon when studying cuneiform, that is, a large number of records of the same star appeared on earlier clay tablets, so he put forward the hypothesis that the origin of Sumerian civilization was related to this star. 1980, NASA astronomer Richard Stacy demonstrated the rationality of this hypothesis through accurate calculation. He thinks that the star of civilization mentioned by Micha Noszky is the Vela X supernova that broke out 6000 years ago, which is the biggest astronomical event that can be remembered in human history. This star can only be barely distinguished today, but 6000 years ago, its light could shine with the sun during the day and hang with the moon at night, creating a long band of light on the water surface of two rivers. As you can imagine, this mysterious natural phenomenon has a great psychological impact on early humans. Their awe and worship of this star has evolved into myth and religion, and the pictures about this star have evolved into original words. Experts really found that the two earliest and most used words in cuneiform are "star" and "god", and these two words are strikingly similar.
The exploration from natural science is exciting and puts forward a brand-new view on the origin of cuneiform. However, many scholars question whether the outbreak of a new star really has the power to create human civilization. Does this mean that cuneiform is completely different from other characters in the world? In addition, archaeological excavations from Assyria and Babylon also proved that Mesopotamia really regarded words as sacred and revered, and believed that the fate of life depended on them. Therefore, they often carry amulets engraved with words with them, and when building temples or palaces, they often put plaques engraved with words in the foundation to pray to God. All these give cuneiform a mysterious color. The breakthrough deciphering of cuneiform was in the rock canyon of Persia. The discoverer was rawlinson, a scholar who was mobilized by soldiers and athletes to engage in archaeology. There, he found a huge cliff stone carving, which described the story of Darling, the king of ancient Persia, preparing to punish the rebellious prince. The story is described in three cuneiform characters around and below the figure, about 1200 lines. Rawlinson realized that these stone carvings might be the key to understanding cuneiform. So he risked his life, climbed the cliff with a narrow wall frame and a fragile ladder, and began to study the secret of cuneiform. 185 1 year, Romania published some translations of Babylonian characters in Biris Tun stone carvings, which greatly promoted the development of Mesopotamian archaeology.
A similar myth
65438+In the early 1950s, after the site of Nineveh, the ancient Assyrian city was unearthed, the Englishman Layard excavated more than 24,000 cuneiform tablets from Nineveh and transported them to the British Museum. Researchers have spent many years classifying and translating these inscriptions. One of the most successful translators is george smith. Smith is an enthusiastic Assyrian scholar. One day, while examining a pile of broken stone tablets, he found something incredible. The inscription records the situation that God sent down heavy rains and floods in Babylon to punish evil and sinful human beings. In that catastrophe, a man named Utena Bilim, together with his family and many animals, built a wooden boat and survived the flood. Smith noticed that the story recorded in the inscription was very similar to the story of the flood and Noah's ark described in Genesis. Smith's discovery caused a sensation. With the deciphering of Babylonian characters, the secrets of Mesopotamia are slowly being uncovered.