Cuneiform writing: Did you mean...?

This clay tablet mentions the names of the kings of Babylon (genealogy of the Hammurabi's dynasty) as far as the reign of Ammiditana (reigned 1683-1647 BCE). The list also mentions the names of several Amorite tribal ancestors, to whose spirits...

This clay tablet represents a lawsuit against Niqmepa King of Alalakh brought before Saustatar king of Mitanni who used a seal made about 2200 BCE and later recut for an earlier king of Mitanni, Shutarna, son of Kirta. circa 1450 BCE. From...

This is the latest datable clay tablet in the British Museum. It gives the monthly positions of the planets in the zodiac signs and the dates of their characteristic phenomena. Dates of solstices, equinoxes, and eclipses are also given. The...

An inscribed cross-shaped stone, later produced to look older than it is, which lists long-running grants and privileges supposedly bestowed on the temple priesthood of the sun-god Shamash by the Akkadian king Manushtushu (reigned 2269-2255...

Imagine something that has never been thought of before. If one holds a book in one's hands, one can imagine an e-book, a large-print book, a picture book, all kinds of books. But how does one imagine a book in a world where even the concept...

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. (Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right). When it comes to religion, many people...

The Korean alphabet is better than yours. Meet the king who invented it and watch him work his linguistic magic in this chapter in the history of writing. You wake up in another palace. This time you're in Korea. The first face to greet...

Come behind the scenes to the Arched Room – an architectural highlight home to thousands of cuneiform tablets. Travel back in time to the ancient Middle East with Curator Irving Finkel. This was originally broadcast on 31 March 2016 as...

Writing in runes isn't a simple one-to-one conversion of one letter to one rune. This video shows how Old Norse was written using the runes of the Younger Futhark, and then looks at examples of real inscriptions from the Viking Age. Contents...

Maya glyphs aren't just Mesoamerican eye candy. They're a working writing system! Unlike the thousands of logograms encountered in your journey so far, the Maya syllabary lets you combine a very limited number of syllables into a block...