The Forum

008

Odyssey Available in Kansas

In the November/December 2004 issue, an inmate incarcerated in a Kansas correctional facility writes (The Forum, p. 8) that the Kansas Department of Corrections might bar Archaeology Odyssey from inmates because the magazine runs pictures of nude Greek statuary. This is not correct. The regulation in question prohibits material that is sexually explicit, including nudity “for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification.” It is unlikely that anything in Archaeology Odyssey meets that criterion.

Egyptian Yin and Yang

David O’Connor notes that the so-called red crown of Egypt represents Lower Egypt (“Narmer’s Enigmatic Palette,” September/October 2004). I believe this red crown is “chair-shaped” because it represents a throne. The white crown of Upper Egypt, with its high conical shape, represents fertility. [Note that “Lower” Egypt is northern Egypt and “Upper” Egypt is southern Egypt; these terms refer to the flow of the Nile River from its headwaters (Upper) to the delta (Lower).] The two crowns together symbolize not only the union of northern and southern Egypt but also the powers of the king.

But Is It Really Jehu?

In “Uncovering Nineveh” (Deborah A. Thomas, September/October 2004), the caption to the photo of the Black Obelisk states that “King Jehu prostrates himself” in a relief carving on the obelisk. The caption also states that the obelisk’s inscription identifies the figure as “Jehu, son of Omri.” In fact, the inscription reads “Tribute of Jehu, son of Omri”; there is no guarantee that Jehu delivered it in person. The self-prostrating figure could have been a messenger from Jehu. When the Judahite king Hezekiah (727–698 B.C.) later sent tribute to the Assyrian king Sennacherib, the latter specifically recorded that Hezekiah “sent his messenger to hand over tribute and make submission.”

Oh, Those Third Conjugation Verbs!

I often use Archaeology Odyssey in classes I teach on Latin and Greek languages, ancient Roman and Greek civilizations, etymology and mythology. The OddiFact on Caesarian births in the September/October 2004 issue (Field Notes, p. 13) was of particular interest because one of my students had just asked me about it.

However, I have to correct something: The Latin word for “cut open” is not “caedare,” as you say, but “caedere.” It is a third conjugation verb.

Has Elamite Been Deciphered?

For five decades I have read in various sources that the Elamite language has never been translated. Now readers of Archaeology Odyssey learn that Elamite has been translated and that one diligent scholar, Richard Hallock, 010spent 40 years on this project (“Returning a Persian Archive,” Field Notes, September/October 2004, p. 15).

Surely this monumental accomplishment merits more than a couple of brief paragraphs. After all, the Elamites had extensive interactions with all the major Mesopotamian nations over a period of several thousand years, and they undoubtedly had substantial influence on the Persians who, in turn, have played an enormous role in Middle Eastern history for over 2,500 years, right down to the present day.

For years there has been speculation on the relationship of Elamite to other languages. It has long been held that Elamite is not an Indo-European language like Persian and other Iranian languages. Some have wondered if Elamite could be related to Sumerian. Others have speculated that Elamite could be related to the Hurrian and Urartian languages. It has even been suggested that Elamite might be a Dravidian language, like Tamil and other non-Indo-European languages of the Indian subcontinent.

We asked Barry B. Powell, the Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, to reply:

The language spoken in ancient Elam, in southwest Iran, is unrelated to any other language (as is Sumerian). We can understand some of it because of multilingual texts that have survived, above all the famous trilingual inscription at Behistun (in modern Iran, on the road from Hamadan to Baghdad), carved by the Persian king Darius I (522–486 B.C.) high up on a rock face. This inscription contains parallel texts in Elamite, Babylonian Akkadian and Old Persian.

The oldest writing from Elam, however, cannot be read. Called proto-Elamite, it is found on clay tablets dating around 2900 B.C. These tablets, mostly from the Elamite city of Susa, contain about 1,000 undeciphered markings (some of them pictograms) that are part of an accounting system. Later, around 2300 B.C., the proto-Elamite markings were simplified into the Old Elamite script, which consists of some 80 signs. We have several bilingual inscriptions with Old Elamite script and Akkadian cuneiform, so we can make out some of the meaning.

In the third millennium B.C., the Elamites abandoned the Old Elamite script and adopted about 130 signs of Mesopotamian cuneiform to write their own Elamite language. This is the 051script of the Behistun inscription. Richard Hallock, who died in 1979, worked for many years to understand this script and the Elamite language used during the Achaemenid period, when Persians ruled over Elam (c. 559–331 B.C.).

Omitted Facts = Fiction

Congratulations on David Soren’s article (“TV Archaeology,” September/October 2004). The disregard for science in the media is not unique to archaeology. Writing in the magazine “Chemistry World” (July 2004), Nina Hall describes reports on chemistry in the media as “a mishmash of half-truths, misunderstood science, sloppy research and un-analytical interpretation, all wrapped up in muddled prose.” The historian Barbara Tuchman has pointed out that when writers deliberately omit facts that do not support their arguments, they are writing fiction.

010

Errata

The caption to the drawing on page 29 of the September/October 2004 issue states that the colossus being lowered is a human-headed lion that was installed in the British Museum in 1852; in fact, the colossus is a bull that was depicted in the Illustrated London News on October 26, 1850, under the heading, “Nimroud Sculptures Just Received at the British Museum.”

Odyssey Available in Kansas