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- Dec 31, 2017
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Answer and discuss the question.
Which first printed alphabet are you talking about? Hamarabi? Egyptian Hyros?
No alien would want to come here. We had nothing to offer then, we have nothing to offer now. Maybe in another 1,000 years or so.
Example of this writing, so we can analyze, please?
I have RH negative A blood.
Ancient cultures is one of my favorite things to teach, learn and study. Sorry about my long post, I have considered shortening it.
I am aware of Cuneiform writing being first used for accounting. It evolved to about 600 characters that were picture representations, much like Chinese characters. IMHO, I don't think it is alien in origin. I believe it was used by humans, likely men, to communicate and for record keeping. It also involved mud and a wedge shaped stick. Mud was plentiful in the fertile valley of Mesopotamia.
The study of the first writing was a lesson I did with my students. It was meant, along with a few other lessons, to help them wonder and appreciate those who came before them, their achievements, and how their work moved us forward as a more developed civilization. Rather than telling children all the answers, I would ask them questions, to get them wondering and thinking. "Why did they decide to use mud? Why didn't they write it in a notebook? Why did they start keeping records?" I would have trays with wedged sticks and mud for them to practice with. We also practiced writing our names when possible, and writing notes with different alphabets, if possible. The more activities, the better. Mud was cumbersome and fragile when it dried.
Over the years, I used different civilizations for studying their alphabets and letters with my students, depending on what exhibits were in town, and what cultural and anthropological studies might be more thoroughly studied visually and in depth, based on the exhibits and accompanying available presentations. We studied Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, Ancient Egyptians (a huge favorite due to the availability of information and artifacts), Ancient Greeks and Norsemen. There are many ancient cultures that are interesting. We would have a culmination day where children would give reports on their research, sometimes a play, and usually a meal from the area of the culture, such as a Greek meal. Many cultures have Mediterranean type foods.
Children were very interested in these studies and would recite off litanies of things they had learned about. When we went to the museum when we were studying Ancient Egypt, I heard one student go on and on about the mummy in the sarcophagus to her parent. She must have talked for at least 5 minutes about many aspects of what she knew about the display, if not longer.
Sixth graders from our school went on a week long field trip to Crow Canyon, in the Four Corners area where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet. There are some who went a couple decades ago who still say it was one of the most interesting things they ever did, to learn about an earlier culture. They participated in archeological digs.
We studied Cuneiform letters, but it was difficult to find other information outside of a limited number of books at that time. With the internet, there is much more available. I have wondered if there are fewer Sumerian artifacts and therefore fewer archeological studies and information available, due to wars and other activity in the area of the fertile valley, where the Mesopotamian culture once thrived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform
Cuneiform, or Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform,[a] was one of the earliest systems of writing, invented by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia. It is distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus.[6][7][8][9] The name cuneiform itself simply means "wedge-shaped".[10][11]
Emerging in Sumer in the late fourth millennium BC (the Uruk IV period) to convey the Sumerian language, which was a language isolate, cuneiform writing began as a system of pictograms, stemming from an earlier system of shaped tokens used for accounting. In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract as the number of characters in use grew smaller (Hittite cuneiform). The system consists of a combination of logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic, and syllabic signs.
The original Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Semitic Akkadian (Assyrian/Babylonian), Eblaite and Amorite languages, the language isolates Elamite, Hattic, Hurrian and Urartian, as well as Indo-European languages Hittite and Luwian; it inspired the later Semitic Ugaritic alphabet as well as Old Persian cuneiform. Cuneiform writing was gradually replaced by the Phoenician alphabet during the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–612 BC). By the second century AD, the script had become extinct, its last traces being found in Assyria and Babylonia, and all knowledge of how to read it was lost until it began to be deciphered in the 19th century.
It is thought by most scholars that cuneiform was invented by women who originally had a high place in society because women knew the children were hers and durable goods were passed down to the eldest female child.
It is a sad consequence that the written language became their downfall as it was used to record marriage and the children born to men.
In the 3000 years of the Sumerian civilization women were reduced from the only property owners to little more than property themselves. The female deities were replaced nearly totally by male counterparts. The two major exceptions are KI and Inanna.
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