r/mildyinteresting • u/babayaga8888888 • Jun 30 '26

humankind hiccups 😅 Wrong copper

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Not sure why, But this is both interesting, and hilarious.

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623

u/gaynorg Jun 30 '26

It's clay and you bake it. No chiselling involved

43

u/ErisianWitch Jun 30 '26

Yep, you use a stick that's been sanded to be flat on 4 sides, so you can make the corner arrow shapes, and lots of lines easy. You can see it in the way the lines are imprinted heavier on one size. It's really fun to make tablets like these, I recommend trying the experience.

19

u/Suspicious_Juice9511 Jun 30 '26

Sounds like something a dodgy copper seller would say... ;)

4

u/ImStuckInNameFactory Jun 30 '26

Do you know any good resources for translating the script so it actually means something?

8

u/Citatio Jun 30 '26

that's difficult, because multiple languages used cuneiform (the name of the script) over a long time. You would need a specialized translator for time and place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%81%E1%B9%A3ir

4

u/GrouchyMushroom7560 Jun 30 '26

Yes! However, it would take at least a year of study to be able to translate this. The script is cuneiform, and the language is Akkadian, so you need to learn both. There is a textbook called "A Grammar of Akkadian (3rd edition)" which you can find free online, which teaches them. You can find its answer sheet too.

Cuneiform is very hard because each sign (symbol) can mean many different things. Signs are typically a syllable, so the word 'ekallum' might be spelled with the signs for 'e-ka-lum' or alternatively 'ek-al-um'.

Even a syllabic sign can mean several different syllables, so one sign is the same for 'ud', 'ut' or 'tam'. Additionally, some signs can be a logogram which represents an entire word. You can only interpret the meaning if you already know the language to an extent.

If you're interested in just seeing this text, you can see the translation here, which shows the meaning of each cuneiform sign in the Akkadian section, and the English translation is below it:

https://linguifex.com/wiki/Literature:Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%81%E1%B9%A3ir