3D Scans Of Ancient Tablets

clonebarkins writes "The BBC is reporting on a new project to create 3D scans of ancient tablets written in cuneiform. They are using software from Kestrel 3D. Just wait till Project Gutenberg gets a hold of these!"

Comments

Just wait till Project Gutenberg gets a hold...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Oh yeah. So all the formatting can be completely destroyed and the text can be shoehorned into 80 column format. No thanks, I'll get my texts as bootlegs as the bootleggers on alt.whatever.ebook put a lot more care into the formatting of their texts.

Sumerian texts

[Pall Agamemnides]

Just wait till Project Gutenberg gets a hold of these!"

You can already find some Sumerian texts on the Internet, along with translations:

The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

not my joke

[L. VeGas]

Cuneiform is awl write.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Many of the tablets are very delicate. But when you use a laser it doesn't harm the surface at all. The museum is expecting to have the results of the experiment soon. If it proves successful, Dr Finkel said large parts of the museum's collection could be made available online."

Dr. Evil> Or completely obliterated and burned to a shard by a friggin laser beam.

Taking a joke too seriously

[kalidasa]

Yes, this should drive you nuts: Project Gutenberg probably can't touch them. Technically, any transcription of the texts is copyrighted - the transcription is the result of editorial work, and so is copyright by the editor (textual editing is necessary on anything older than a few generations, and the older, the more necessary). Of course, the ACTUAL text of the tablets is public domain, so if you read and transcribe them yourself, you can put your transcription into the public domain. And I am talking about TRANSCRIPTIONS, as in "cuneiform texts in the original languages and cuneiform writing." Translations, obviously, are copyright by the translators if the original text is in the public domain.

There's a hell of a lot of work involved in transcribing something like this (or translating, for that matter).

Where can I find an Assyriologist?

[Xilman]

Some years ago I was given one of these tablets. It's about 5cm by 3cm by 1cm thick and is covered with cuneiform I can't read.

Anyone know where I can find an Assyriologist to help me read my tablet? Such people seem to be very few and far between.

Egyptologists, OTOH, are relatively easy to find and self-education books on Middle Egyptian are readily available.

Paul

Hmmm

[tsa]

This reminds me of that book by Terry Pratchett (The Fifth Elephant) in which the original sacret Scone of Stone on which the new dwarf kings are crowned turned out to be made of chalk with a thin layer of paint to make it look like stone.