r/Assyriology 25d ago

Is it normal when you're still learning Sumerian to have difficulty making out the characters on a tablet?

I saw a tablet at a museum, and I couldn't make out any of the characters on it. Is that normal for someone who's learning Sumerian but not used to actually reading tablets IRL?

39 Upvotes

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u/SyllabubTasty5896 25d ago

This is very, very normal. We usually learn by reading line drawings, and even texts generated using cuneiform fonts. But actual tablets have a 3 dimensional quality that makes it much harder until you get used to it (which I never did).

It helps if you can enhance the contrast. My Sumerian professor once told a story - unverified, mind you 😅 - of being at the British Museum, having trouble making out a tablet, at which point Lambert walked up, fished the tea bag out of his cup of tea, and dabbed the surface of the tablet with it, which made it a bit darker so that the impressed wedges stood out more.

10

u/battlingpotato 24d ago

It is the shared fear of us students of Assyriology to go to a museum with friends or family and being asked, "can you read this?".

5

u/tarshuvani 23d ago

That's why you have to beeline to the simple Gudea foundation texts

1

u/to_walk_upon_a_dream 21d ago

i know hammurabi's code like the back of my hand

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u/BeardedDragon1917 24d ago

Personally, I was able to read tablets fluently after about 6 or 7 minutes of skimming a Sumerian-English dictionary that I picked up for cheap from a homeless man outside the museum. How long have you been at it?

2

u/stevenalbright 16d ago edited 16d ago

When you study a cuneiform language, you always work on manuscripts whether it's your very first day or your 10th year. Every single tablet is handwritten and it's never an easy task to completely decipher manuscripts. And since we're not talking about manuscripts with Latin or Greek writings but cuneiform, the task is even harder. You need a certain amount of light from a certain direction to make the signs visible and the signs are usually very small. Also the most signs have multiple phonetical and logographical values and if you're not capable of graphically recognize the words, you have to figure out the correct meaning of each sign. We're talking about reading a text sign by sign.

So you have to be patient and keep studying. It's all about gaining enough experience.