Scribes at work

This video shows Professor Theo van den Hout, Editor of the Chicago Hittite Dictionary, writing a Hittite letter in cuneiform, and W. Raymond Johnson, Field Director of the Oriental Institute's Epigraphic Survey, writing passages from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. They use rough approximations of the ancient writing tools.

This video was produced by Tiffany Salone of the Chicago Media Initiatives Group for the Oriental Institute Museum special exhibit "Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East" which runs from September 28, 2010 through March 6, 2011.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Writing
• scribes
• Egyptian
• Book
• of
• the
• Dead
• hieroglyph
• hieroglyphic
• Egypt
• Mesopotamia
• Hittite
• cuneiform
• tablet
• clay
• papyrus
• Anatolia
• Sumerian
• Assyrian
• Babylonian

[cottoncandy544]

me questing he don't speck English...

[LiaPema]

I am learning to speak Hittite, or more accurately Nesite. It is quite similar to German, English and other major European languages. I like Hittite. I am originally from Turkey, and believe that I originate from the Hittites and that I should learn my ancestor's language. Mek asmi lalan Nesli= translation= I like much the Nesite language. Memami ya hatrami Nesli= I speak and write Nesite.

Thanks for uploading.

Lia

[RamessesIX]

Prof. Johnson (Epigraphic Survey) here uses a brush to render glyphs in "linear" style. Many of the really interesting examples of the Book of the Dead also utilize "semi-cursive" style, evidently (to me) written with a carved rush that must have behaved rather like a Zig or Itoya felt calligraphy marker. Taking up the challenge by Dr. Fischer to explore semi-cursive, please let me ask that if any others are doing so, please consider comparing notes, as I have been investigating it for decades.