Since so few scholars can read the languages on the tablets-which include Akkadian, Sumerian, and Hittite-the overwhelming majority remain untranslated. Four newly deciphered tablets written in Old Babylonian, a form of Akkadian, have been found to contain the earliest known mention of omens related to lunar eclipses. These tablets, which likely come from Sippar, a Babylonian city in modern Iraq, were acquired by the museum more than a century ago and date to between 1900 and 1600 B.C.
Denne historien er fra January/February 2025-utgaven av Archaeology.
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Denne historien er fra January/February 2025-utgaven av Archaeology.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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ORIGINS OF PERUVIAN RELIGION
While investigating looters' holes at the site of La Otra Banda in northern Peru's Zaña Valley, archaeologist Luis A. Muro Ynoñán of the Field Museum and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru spotted carved blocks around seven feet below the surface.
ISLAND OF FREEDOM
Many of the enslaved Africans sent to Brazil beginning in 1549 were from what is now Angola, where one of the most widely spoken languages was Kimbundu.
NAZCA GHOST GLYPHS
From the 1940s to the early 2000s, geoglyphs were discovered in the Nazca Desert of southern Peru depicting animals, humans, and other figures at the rate of 1.5 per year.
COLONIAL COMPANIONS
The ancestry of dogs in seventeenth-century Jamestown offers a window into social dynamics between Indigenous people and early colonists.
BAD MOON RISING
The British Museum houses around 130,000 clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia written in cuneiform script between 3200 B.C. and the first century A.D.
DANCING DAYS OF THE MAYA
In the mountains of Guatemala, murals depict elaborate performances combining Catholic and Indigenous traditions
LOST GREEK TRAGEDIES REVIVED
How a scholar discovered passages from a great Athenian playwright on a discarded papyrus
Medieval England's Coveted Cargo
Archaeologists dive on a ship laden with marble bound for the kingdom's grandest cathedrals
Unearthing a Forgotten Roman Town
A stretch of Italian farmland concealed one of the small cities that powered the empire
TOP 10 DISCOVERIES OF 2024
ARCHAEOLOGY magazine reveals the year's most exciting finds
