Fascinating Glimpse of Ancestors’ Lives Exposed in Ancient Writing #poem #poetry #history #archeology #ancient

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Early writing tablet recording the allocation of beer in southern Iraq, 3100–3000 BC

What do you share with ancients,

With people lost in time?

Messages in cuneiform

Reveal that

our worries rhyme.

Advice to sooth a baby,

Betray a brother’s fear,

Invoice your meal’s delivery,

Including all your beer.

Maps to aid your travels,

Proof your taxes have been paid,

Seals that are signatures

That eons couldn’t fade.

Will future anthropologists

Revere your grocery list?

Concern themselves with UPS

From kin they can’t dismiss?

The world was once so different

At civilization’s s dawn,

But we are human,

as they were,

And our heirs

will carry on.

Kate Rauner

Thousands of cuneiform writings remain to be translated so we can understand the Mesopotamians who gave us the wheel, astronomy, the 60-minute hour, maps, economics and politics, and the story of the flood and  ark.

The records give us a picture of day-to-day life in ancient Mesopotamia, of power structures and trading networks, but also of other aspects of its social history, such as the role of female workers.

Thanks to advanced imaging techniques, anyone with an internet connection can now access treasures.

New imaging techniques are making the job of working with such ancient, often damaged texts easier… machines will eventually be able to translate more complex Sumerian tablets, and other languages like Akkadian. bbc.com