Behind the locked doors of the British Museum in London is a beautiful library with high vaulted ceilings. In this secret room, Irving Finkel opens a drawer and takes out a clay tablet. Cracked and burnt, it is imprinted with the tiny letters of the world’s oldest written language. A list of omens. Another tablet emerges from another drawer. “This is a prayer to the god Marduk,” says Finkel, who serves as his keeper and assistant to the museum’s ancient Mesopotamian writing, language, and culture. Finkel is one of the few people in this long-dead world who can read. Fluently known as Cuneiform.
Behind us, a photographer meticulously captures images of this writing. This work is part of a revolution, using today’s computing power to bring back this 5,000-year-old record of his, unlocking new secrets of the world’s first civilization.
Although this writing system was deciphered 165 years ago (see “Reading the signs”), most of the texts that use it have not been translated into modern languages. Now, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, computers are trained to read and translate cuneiform script, put fragmented tablets back together to recreate ancient libraries, and predict missing bits of text. These tools make it possible for the first time since antiquity to read the earliest works of literature in full, provide insight into later biblical stories, and shed light on civilizations at the dawn of history. I’m here.
The tale of …
