High-tech aids for Proto-Elamite

[Duncan Head]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19964786

[Mark]

This is the article referenced by Duncan:

Breakthrough in world's oldest undeciphered writing

Experts working on proto-Elamite hope they are on the point of 'a breakthrough'

The world's oldest undeciphered writing system, which has so far defied attempts to uncover its 5,000-year-old secrets, could be about to be decoded by Oxford University academics.

This international research project is already casting light on a lost bronze age middle eastern society where enslaved workers lived on rations close to the starvation level.

"I think we are finally on the point of making a breakthrough," says Jacob Dahl, fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford and director of the Ancient World Research Cluster.

Dr Dahl's secret weapon is being able to see this writing more clearly than ever before.

In a room high up in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, above the Egyptian mummies and fragments of early civilisations, a big black dome is clicking away and flashing out light.

This device, part sci-fi, part-DIY, is providing the most detailed and high quality images ever taken of these elusive symbols cut into clay tablets. This is Indiana Jones with software.

It's being used to help decode a writing system called proto-Elamite, used between around 3200BC and 2900BC in a region now in the south west of modern Iran.

And the Oxford team think that they could be on the brink of understanding this last great remaining cache of undeciphered texts from the ancient world.

Tablet computer

Dr Dahl, from the Oriental Studies Faculty, shipped his image-making device on the Eurostar to the Louvre Museum in Paris, which holds the most important collection of this writing.

The clay tablets were put inside this machine, the Reflectance Transformation Imaging System, which uses a combination of 76 separate photographic lights and computer processing to capture every groove and notch on the surface of the clay tablets.

It allows a virtual image to be turned around, as though being held up to the light at every possible angle.

These images will be publicly available online, with the aim of using a kind of academic crowdsourcing.

He says it's misleading to think that codebreaking is about some lonely genius suddenly understanding the meaning of a word. What works more often is patient teamwork and the sharing of theories. Putting the images online should accelerate this process.

But this is painstaking work. So far Dr Dahl has deciphered 1,200 separate signs, but he says that after more than 10 years study much remains unknown, even such basic words as "cow" or "cattle".

He admits to being "bitten" by this challenge. "It's an unknown, uncharted territory of human history," he says.

Extinct language

But why has this writing proved so difficult to interpret?

Dr Dahl suspects he might have part of the answer. He's discovered that the original texts seem to contain many mistakes - and this makes it extremely tricky for anyone trying to find consistent patterns.

He believes this was not just a case of the scribes having a bad day at the office. There seems to have been an unusual absence of scholarship, with no evidence of any lists of symbols or learning exercises for scribes to preserve the accuracy of the writing.

This first case of educational underinvestment proved fatal for the writing system, which was corrupted and then completely disappeared after only a couple of hundred years. "It's an early example of a technology being lost," he says.

"The lack of a scholarly tradition meant that a lot of mistakes were made and the writing system may eventually have become useless."

Making it even harder to decode is the fact that it's unlike any other ancient writing style. There are no bi-lingual texts and few helpful overlaps to provide a key to these otherwise arbitrary looking dashes and circles and symbols.

This is a writing system - and not a spoken language - so there's no way of knowing how words sounded, which might have provided some phonetic clues.

Dr Dahl says that one of the really important historical significances of this proto-Elamite writing is that it was the first ever recorded case of one society adopting writing from another neighbouring group.

But infuriatingly for the codebreakers, when these proto-Elamites borrowed the concept of writing from the Mesopotamians, they made up an entirely different set of symbols.

Why they should make the intellectual leap to embrace writing and then at the same time re-invent it in a different local form remains a puzzle.

But it provides a fascinating snapshot of how ideas can both spread and change.

Mr One Hundred

In terms of written history, this is the very remote past. But there is also something very direct and almost intimate about it too.

You can see fingernail marks in the clay. These neat little symbols and drawings are clearly the work of an intelligent mind.

These were among the first attempts by our human ancestors to try to make a permanent record of their surroundings. What we're doing now - my writing and your reading - is a direct continuation.

But there are glimpses of their lives to suggest that these were tough times. It wasn't so much a land of milk and honey, but porridge and weak beer.

Even without knowing all the symbols, Dr Dahl says it's possible to work out the context of many of the messages on these tablets.

The numbering system is also understood, making it possible to see that much of this information is about accounts of the ownership and yields from land and people. They are about property and status, not poetry.

This was a simple agricultural society, with a ruling household. Below them was a tier of powerful middle-ranking figures and further below were the majority of workers, who were treated like "cattle with names".

Their rulers have titles or names which reflect this status - the equivalent of being called "Mr One Hundred", he says - to show the number of people below him.

It's possible to work out the rations given to these farm labourers.

Dr Dahl says they had a diet of barley, which might have been crushed into a form of porridge, and they drank weak beer.

The amount of food received by these farm workers hovered barely above the starvation level.

However the higher status people might have enjoyed yoghurt, cheese and honey. They also kept goats, sheep and cattle.

For the "upper echelons, life expectancy for some might have been as long as now", he says. For the poor, he says it might have been as low as in today's poorest countries.

The tablets also have surprises. Even though there are plenty of pictures of animals and mythical creatures, Dr Dahl says there are no representations of the human form of any kind. Not even a hand or an eye.

Was this some kind of cultural or religious taboo?

Dr Dahl remains passionate about what this work says about such societies, digging into the deepest roots of civilisation. This is about where so much begins. For instance, proto-Elamite was the first writing ever to use syllables.

If Macbeth talked about the "last syllable of recorded time", the proto-Elamites were there for the first.

And with sufficient support, Dr Dahl says that within two years this last great lost writing could be fully understood.

[Mark]

Also: http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2012/122210.html

Technology helping to crack oldest undeciphered writing system

New technology has allowed researchers to come closer than ever to cracking the world's oldest undeciphered writing system.

Researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Southampton have developed a Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) System for Ancient Documentary Artefacts (funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) to capture images of some of the world's most important historical documents. Recently this system was used on objects held in the vaults of the Louvre Museum in Paris.

These images have now been made available online for free public access on the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative website.

Among the documents are manuscripts written in the so-called proto-Elamite writing system used in ancient Iran from 3,200 to 3,000 BC and which is the oldest undeciphered writing system currently known. By viewing extremely high quality images of these documents, and by sharing them with a community of scholars worldwide, the Oxford University team hope to crack the code once and for all.

Dr Jacob Dahl, a co-leader of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative and a member of Oxford University's Faculty of Oriental Studies, said: 'I have spent the last ten years trying to decipher the proto-Elamite writing system and, with this new technology, I think we are finally on the point of making a breakthrough.

'The quality of the images captured is incredible. And it is important to remember that you cannot decipher a writing system without having reliable images because you will, for example, overlook differences barely visible to the naked eye which may have meaning. Consider for example not being able to distinguish the letter i from the letter t.'

The reflectance transformation imaging technology system designed by staff in the Archaeological Computing Research Group and Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton comprises a dome with 76 lights and a camera positioned at the top of the dome. The manuscript is placed in the centre of the dome, whereafter 76 photos are taken each with one of the 76 lights individually lit. In post-processing the 76 images are joined so that the researcher can move the light across the surface of the digital image and use the difference between light and shadow to highlight never-before-seen details.

'We have never been able to view documents in this quality before,' Dr Dahl explained.

Dr Dahl believes this writing system might be even more interesting than previously thought. He said: 'Looking at contemporary and later writing systems, we would expect to see proto-Elamite use only symbols to represent things, but we think they also used a syllabary – for example 'cat' would not be represented by a symbol depicting the animal but by symbols for the otherwise unrelated words 'ca' and 'at'.

'Half of the signs used in this way seem to have been invented ex novo for the sounds they represent – if this turns out to be the case, it would transform fundamentally how we understand early writing where phonetecism is believed to have been developed through the so-called rebus principle (a modern example would be for example "I see you", written with the three signs 'eye', the 'sea', and a 'ewe').'

Some features of the writing system are already known. The scribes had loaned - or potentially shared - some signs from/with Mesopotamia, such as  the numerical signs and their systems  and signs for objects like sheep, goats, cereals and some others. Nevertheless, 80-90% of the signs remain undeciphered.

The writing system died out after only a couple centuries. Dr Dahl said: 'It was used in administration and for agricultural records but it was not used in schools – the lack of a scholarly tradition meant that a lot of mistakes were made and the writing system may eventually have become useless as an administrative system. Eventually, the system was abandoned after some two hundred years.'

Dr Dahl joked: 'This is probably the world's first case of a collapse of knowledge because of the under-funding of education!'

The Louvre gave the researchers access to the c. 1100 proto-Elamite tablets in its collections, half of which can now be viewed on the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative website.

Dr Dahl said: 'The Louvre collection of early writing from Mesopotamia and Iran is incredibly important – it contains the first substantial law code, the first record of a battle between kings, the first propaganda, and the first literature. Being able to put these documents online would be a great achievement.'

Dr Dahl said making important documents from early human history publicly accessible is becoming increasingly important, both as a consequence of the ever-expanding influence of cyberscholarship in academic research, but also in many cases more pressingly as a matter of cultural heritage preservation in areas of the world threatened by armed conflict and collapse of security.

'Iraq's cultural heritage has been pillaged in the last 20 years, and the situation in neighbouring Syria is looking dire as well,' he said.   

[Mark]

http://tinyurl.com/a6hzlg5 (in Italian - translation below is by Google)

Researchers at the Universities of Oxford and Southampton have developed a system for reflectance transformation imaging (reflectance transformation of images) to collect high-quality images of ancient and important historical documents (research funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Andrew W . Mellon Foundation). The system has recently been applied to the study of some relics preserved in the basement of the Louvre. These and other images to documents under investigation are now available free online at Cuneiform Digital Library initiative.

Among the documents there are manuscripts written in proto-Elamite, the oldest and undeciphered writing system known, used in ancient Iran from 3200 to 3000 BC. Analyzing the images with high quality of these documents and share them with the scientific community, the team at Oxford University hopes to crack the code.

Dr Jacob Dahl, one of the leaders of the Cuneiform Digital Library at Oxford University as well as Professor in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, has spent ten years trying to decipher the writing pro-Elamite and believes that the new system could lead to major advances in research. Dr Dahl points out the importance of working on images of high quality when it comes to coding manuscripts, that are highlighted even small differences in the symbolic can be decisive in the interpretation of the code.

The staff of the Archaeological Computing Research Group and the Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton has developed a methodology called reflectance transformation imaging : the manuscript located at the center of a dome is photographed 76 times as it is illuminated by 76 lights placed in different angles. The images produced are then combined so as to be able to move the light along the surface of the digital image and use the differences of light and shadow to highlight details.

Through the research conducted so far has shown that the pre-Elamite writing not only uses symbols to represent things but also a syllabary. For example, the word "cat" would not be represented by a symbol of the animal, but as symbols for the syllables of the word.

As many as half of the signs seem to be so used were invented from scratch to represent the sound. If this is confirmed, thanks to the analysis of the images obtained in this way, would radically change our interpretation and understanding of the early writings, where the phoneticism is considered to have developed through the so-called "principle of the puzzle."
Although certain features of the writing system is already known, the scribes shared some signs with the writing of Mesopotamia (numbers and signs representing animals or objects as a sheep, goat, cereals, etc..), 80% -90% the system remains undeciphered.

Writing pro-Elamite was used in official documents and agriculture, but not in schools. The lack of an academic tradition has meant that many errors were inserted in the text and that the system is not particularly useful for administrative functions.

Jokingly, Dr. Dalh said that "maybe this is the first known case of system failure due to the lack of knowledge of the financing of education."

The Louvre has access to 1100 pro-Elamite tablets, half of which can now be found on the website of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative.

Dr. Dahl has argued that the collection of the Louvre, and in particular the tablets from Mesopotamia and Iran, are historically important because they contain the first substantial code of law, the first documentation of struggles between rulers, the first example of propaganda and the first form of literature.

To publish and disseminate the fundamental documents of ancient history is becoming increasingly important both to increase the contribution to research and to preserve and protect the cultural heritage in the areas affected by conflict. Suffice it to say that in Iraq over the past 20 years, the historical and artistic heritage has been subject to looting and neighboring Syria seems to have unfortunately a similar fate.

[Mark]

The Puzzle of Proto-Elamite

http://www.historytoday.com/mark-ronan/puzzle-proto-elamite

Mark Ronan describes new efforts  at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, to decode the world's oldest undeciphered language.

In a room at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, high above the fragments of early civilisations that are housed there, a camera dome flashes out light, yielding detailed, high-quality images of ancient written tablets. Thanks to this process of Reflectance Imaging Technology (RTI) our knowledge of the world's oldest undeciphered writing, known as proto-Elamite and dating to before 3000 BC, is undergoing a transformation. A corpus of over 1,600 clay tablets, originating in Iran but housed mainly in the Louvre, has been analysed using this machine and detailed images published online for all would-be decipherers to examine.

Under the direction of Jacob Dahl of Wolfson College and Oxford's Oriental Institute the new images have been used to correct earlier work, some of which had conflated proto-Elamite symbols with those in a later and quite different script called Linear Elamite. Neither has been deciphered, and according to Dr Dahl, they have about as much in common with each other as either has with the Shang oracle bones in China. Early attempts at decipherment were also confounded by numerical errors and the sloppy writing of the original tablets, abetted by poor reproduction in modern times that has made it appear that there were no repeats of sign sequences, which is false.

All this will now be corrected and the tablet contents clearly laid out for serious investigation, one aim being to understand the language of the texts. The script itself is conventionally called proto-Elamite because it appears frequently in south-western Iran, where cuneiform tablets from 500 years later are written in a language known as Elamite. This was used for over 2,000 years, starting in about 2500 BC. It eventually became one of the languages written in the Achaemenid Empire of Persia until its conquest by Alexander the Great.

Some linguists believe Elamite to be related to the Dravidian languages of South India, which include Tamil, and an Elamo-Dravidian family stretching from the Gulf to India could include the language of the Harappan civilisation in the Indus Valley. Interestingly enough, proto-Elamite tablets have been discovered at sites far eastwards towards Baluchistan, though a few hundred tablets and fragments have recently been unearthed near Tehran, so it seems the language was probably spoken over a wide area of Iran. Could the tablets represent an early version of Elamite? If so why did the writing rapidly die out? These tablets date to the period around 3200 to 2900 BC, but Dahl believes that those discovered to date represent only a very short period, possibly no more than a few scribal generations. Precise dating is difficult because of uncertainty in carbon dates at around that time, due to a plateau in the carbon curve for that period.

This is the same timeframe for which proto-cuneiform texts have been unearthed at Uruk, a great city on the Euphrates in southern Mesopotamia. Proto-cuneiform, written on clay tablets with a sharp stylus, gradually evolved to become the cuneiform system in which short, sharp strokes could be transcribed more quickly onto wet clay.

Though proto-cuneiform and proto-Elamite are different, they used the same elaborate system of numerical signs and some signs, such as that for sheep, are common to both systems. With present knowledge it is not entirely clear whether the script of south-western Iran came before or after that of Mesopotamia, but what is quite clear is that the Mesopotamian version was the only one with a strong scholarly tradition, some early texts listing signs and official titles that scribes could copy and learn. Another striking difference is that in Mesopotamia human forms such as heads, feet, hands and eyes were used, whereas proto-Elamite has no human forms at all, except signs for male and female genitalia to distinguish male from female workers, but these may well have been borrowed. The apparent taboo against human forms, which does not extend to animals, is curious and not shared by other early writing systems.

With over 1,600 proto-Elamite tablets, some having up to 200 lines, decipherment is a realistic prospect and online publication of excellent images will give it a huge boost. Jacob Dahl believes that some of the signs are being used to indicate syllables, making these the first texts in the world to use a syllabary.

What can the language be? One obvious answer is an early form of Elamite, though Elamite cuneiform used the script developed in Mesopotamia, rather than anything from proto-Elamite. The language of the earliest Mesopotamian texts, dated to archaeological levels Uruk IV and III, also remains unknown, though texts written shortly after 3000 BC are agreed to be in Sumerian, which remained a spoken language until about 2000 BC. So could proto-Elamite be related to Sumerian, but then why not use the system of signs developed at Uruk? It could also be a Semitic language, since these are attested very early: Akkadian in Mesopotamia and Eblaite in Syria were written in the mid-third millennium and both are Semitic. Or could it be a very early form of Indo-European? That would make it by far the earliest written language in that family, predating Hittite by 1,500 years.

Another obvious question is why this writing system failed to develop. Dahl even wonders whether what we have is a later phenomenon because he says, 'the scribes were not very competent', and asks whether this is 'the first example of knowledge lost due to underfunding'.

Certainly it was a remarkable development, with signs written in consecutive lines, unlike early Mesopotamian writing, where signs were enclosed in boxes but without a specific order in each box. In other words proto-Elamite was a linear script, yet it died out, unlike Linear A from second millennium Crete, which turned into Linear B and was used for an early form of Greek. That died out when the Mediterranean world was engulfed by war and destruction in about 1200 BC, but what happened in Elam, in south-western Iran? We have no idea, so any evidence we can gather from these tablets is intriguing and welcome.

Mark Ronan is Honorary Professor of Mathematics at University College London.

[Andreas Johansson]

Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that Proto-Elamite is secondary to Proto-Cuneiform, one might wonder if it was more of an imitation for reasons of prestige than fulfilling a practical purpose. The scribes' lack of competence could fit in - it was more important that the king had scribes, just like the neighbours in Mesopotamia, than precisely what those scribes scribbled - as obviously the quick abandonment (which is harder to explain if there was an practical administrative or mercantile need for writing).

Just a thought.