Slashdot Mirror
Crowdsourcing Ancient Egyptian Scrolls
An anonymous reader writes "Dons at Oxford University were on the BBC Radio 4 'Today' program this morning asking for help from listeners to transcribe unearthed ancient Egyptian texts and scrolls via their website. Visitors to the site are asked to match-up letters on scanned fragments of papyrus with an on-screen Greek alphabet. By doing so, they can help reveal some of the amazing documents that the ancient Egyptians last read. You too can become a papyrologist!"
Greek? You expect me to help translate Ptolemaic period shit?!?!? Do I *look* like Alexander the Fucking Great to you?
You want my help, you better throw down some hieroglyphs, bitch!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
No thanks. I hear those Egyptian curses are nasty, and are acquired by simply reading something or breaking a seal.
Just like the ancient Egyptians these researchers are relying on slave labour!
I think this is a great idea, although they would need some peer review and a full board to accept the translations as being the most accurate....but a great way to save money, that's for sure
just think if they setup a website similar to the jigsaw puzzle website jigzone that let anyone download a bunch of fragments and assemble them, and when they find two or more pieces that fit then that info in anonymously uploaded for further inspection and with the millions of internet users having access they might be able to complete this daunting task fairly soon
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
It's actually pretty fun. I already transcribed one piece. It's running a bit slow though. When they said "crowd sourcing", I don't think they meant "slashdot crowd sourcing".
Mine was:
two figs
some dates
half a dozen eggs
breakfast sausage
cottage cheese
As a late antique historian, I have to point out (to defend our territory, and, at the same time, avoid offending historians of an earlier period) that these are not "ancient Egyptian" in the sense most people mean. These are very late antique. I am glad to see a project like this, however. It's because of mundane papyrus stashes like these that we know more about daily life in Egypt, and Alexandria in particular, than any other area in late antiquity. For those who might be interested in the subject, I recommend R. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (1993), C. Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity (1997), and the recent Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700, edited by Bagnall (2007), as some great places to start.
There's your problem. These symbols that you're translating as "Door of Heaven" should be something more like "Star Gate".
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
This one says d-r-i-n-k-y-o-u-r-o-v-a-l-t-i-n-e Cryptic!
I heard about this on RadioLab awhile ago - a trash dump full of fragments of old scrolls. I believe it was the "Detective Stories" episode: http://www.radiolab.org/2007/sep/10/
They were saying it would take centuries to match up all of the pieces, because they only had a few people working on it, and so many scraps to go through. My immediate thought was that they should scan them all and put them on the Internet, and some bored 17 year old would write a program in Scala that would run in the cloud and match everything up in a weekend. Sounds like somebody else had the same idea ...
I started doing one, but couldn't finish. I got as far as 3.1415926535897 93238462643383 27950288419716 93993751058209 74944592307816 40628620899862 80348253421170 but then I got bored. Meaningless gibberish. I did sneak a peek at the last page though. Turns out the last digit is 8.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The web takes ages to load. Let me guess: It got SlashDDoSed...
I think this kind of shit gives me hope that the internet isn't just for porn and poker anymore. What a great and smart way to exponentially increase the resources of the project. Stuff like this, and folding@home, and other crowd-sourced projects are an amazing phenomenon. Whoever is in charge knows how to sell it too, with the whole "read it while you translate it" concept, which kind of turns the whole thing into a video game. Nice work by the Oxford folk.
Imagination is the silver lining of Intelligence.
"I have picked-up the trust and courage to write to you this letter with divine confidence that you are a reliable and honest person who will be capable for this important business transaction ..."
i.e. http://www.flickr.com/photos/32382279@N02/3043826837/
"Images may not be copied or offloaded, and the images and their texts may not be published. All digital images of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri are © Imaging Papyri Project, University of Oxford. The papyri themselves are owned by the Egypt Exploration Society, London. All rights reserved."
They want help transcribing these documents, but don't want anyone to keep copies of the images? How rude.
Make it a facebook games, and get millions of players overnight. Give them a free virtual hat or something.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But then we need to get access to Cheyenne Mountain to activate the stargate, which considering how the Americans don't like to share their toys would be slim to none.
Just registered and tried to transcribe some fragments, but either the interface is completely non-intuitive (and any help missing), or the app doesn't work in Firefox.
:(
Quite a shame, finally found a fragment I could transcribe too
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
Am I the only one disappointed by the fact that I cannot listen to the translation? This site would be a thousand times better if, after you translate the piece, it would do a simple greek text to english speech translation. Heck even if it didn't talk it would be nice to know the english translation of the text at least.
You're trying to be silly, but that kind of information would be useful: - If I have a bunch of people's shopping lists, I'd be able to tell what sort of things were commonly eaten in that society. - Based on how many other people had those foods on the list, I'd likely be able to get an idea as to what's considered rare delicacies versus what's common food (e.g. caviar versus ground beef). - Especially combining that information with where the document was found, I'd have a good chance of linking menus to social classes. - Once I've got an idea of which social classes have these documents and which don't, I'd know how widespread literacy was in that society, whether there were only professional scribes or amateur writers as well, and maybe some sense of how integrated the scribes were with the rest of the society.
I mean, imagine you're an archaeologist from the year 3000 trying to figure out why this "pizza" stuff was so wildly popular in ancient New York. Suddenly the nutritional information on the back of a pepperoni wrapper is vitally important.
the text you are looking for is " A canticle for Leibowitz", by Walter Miller. I distinctly remember that in the story there's a little note attributed to Leibowitz himself, that reads:"Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels—bring home for Emma."
upon this, and other finds, a civilisation is reborn after a nuclear war.
Couriously enough, I read the book because it was quoted in the novel "Space", by James Michener, when one of the main characters wants to leave a legacy of love for science. Remeber, this is Slashdot!
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Images may not be copied or offloaded, and the images and their texts may not be published. All digital images of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri are © Imaging Papyri Project, University of Oxford. The papyri themselves are owned by the Egypt Exploration Society, London. All rights reserved.
I think translating these are a good idea but hell if the above isn't a killjoy for crowd-sourcing. Yes we want you to work for us.. no you can not take a bit copy of something you find really interesting that you've helped us out with.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
match-up letters on scanned fragments of papyrus
Is this why?
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.