Assyriology PhD student Pavla Rosenstein takes you step-by-step through the translation of a Sumerian cuneiform tablet inscribed in the 3rd millennium BCE and currently housed in the Yale Babylonian Collection. Follow the YBC account for a fascinating deep dive into the oldest written and translated language in human history. This inscription reads: “Gudea, the ruler of Lagash, built a temple for Ninshubur, the aide of the heavens, his mistress.” | Yale Peabody Museum

Incising a Cuneiform Tablet In this video we see the method of incising a cuneiform tablet with a known ancient student exercise, the list of Sumerian month names in the calendar. The total number of incisions is 305. The exercise was used around 3,800 to 3,700 years ago. Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteri