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This page should be deleted or redone in its entirety as it does not live up to the standards in the field of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. It has too many contested and unproven claims, and links to unrelated items. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JLDahl ( talk • contribs) 13:03, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
@ पाटलिपुत्र and Ploversegg: Desset et al. have published an English-language paper in the latest July issue of Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie . I've already added a citation for the paper to "Further reading" with its doi, so it's easy to find and can be easily referenced with {{ sfnp}}. – Scyrme ( talk) 16:14, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
Cool! I admit I've been a bit doubtful after he took his work on a press tour and speaking thing without having published, which reminded me of the old days the people kept popping up with "decipherments" of hieroglyphics. And he also was trying to extend it to some uber framework for elamite languages, which was not a good sign. [1] Still, his other work has been excellent and I'll read the paper and if it holds up all will be forgiven! I certainly hope this is the case :-) Ploversegg ( talk) 19:02, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
I gave the article a quick read. A long thorough paper which fortunately Desset had already covered a lot of in his earlier papers. I would say
Anyway, I was going to say that LE is now "partially deciphered" but that was probably true in 2019 so how about "largely deciphered"? Given how few exemplars Desset has to work with that is pretty impressive. Ploversegg ( talk) 03:07, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
Just so that everybody knows, and in order not to duplicate efforts, I am working on a Public Domain "Linear Elamite alpha-syllabary" table (attached), referenced from Desset et al. (2022) of course. It will take some time to complete with my own typography, maybe a week or two. Any comment welcome (the sooner the better), especially regarding the adequacy of the table structure. I will update regularly as I move forward. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 11:40, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
I'll take a look. Nice work being done! I was thinking maybe some input from the Desset paper could help the Elamite languages article. Has anyone else wondered about the fact that in a sea of people speaking semitic, anatolian etc family languages we had an island of isolates (Kassite, Elamite, Sumerian, and Hurrian - despite what the broken Hurro-Urartian languages article says). Odd. Ploversegg ( talk) 17:33, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
For the sign table: Done
पाटलिपुत्र
Pat
(talk)
18:17, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
The article currently reads:
It is often claimed that Linear Elamite is a syllabic writing system derived from the older Proto-Elamite writing system, although this has not been proven.
For this it cites Desset (2018a), but looking over it (it's linked in the article), I don't see where Desset says this or anything close to this. IIRC, Desset does describe it as a syllabic writing system now that he's (apparently) deciphered it, and it's plausible that others have speculated that it was a syllabic writing system based on the analysis bilingual and bigraphical texts, so perhaps it has often been said, idk. However, I didn't see any of this being described in the source provided. In-fact, Desset says that it was "probably" a mixed system in his 2018a contribution to The Elamite World (although Desset cites someone else when saying so). Unless I was careless and missed the relevant part of the paper, this line probably needs to be deleted. If I did miss it, whatever the paper says may need to be re-evaluated in light Desset's evolving views since 2018 (which he has commented on in interviews, iirc). -- Scyrme ( talk) 17:45, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
@ Awanir: You restored your addition of "erroneously" after Ploversegg removed it; could you explain why? Does the the reference provided state that the identification is false? If so, could you provide the page? If not, do you have another source which does say so? – Scyrme ( talk) 00:33, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
A few words in the edit comment often forestalls this sort of issue, something I have certainly given short shrift to myself on occasion. I think everyone here was operating in good faith. Given the proposed translation by Desset the statue would indeed be misidentified. I say proposed because it hasn't been reviewed yet. On more than one occasion I remember reading what I thought was a fine paper only to then find that Brinkman had torn the paper COMPLETELY to shreds. :-) So yes its a nice paper and in a reputable journal and supported by Desset's early work but it not quite a done deal yet. I expect soon we will see reviews appear and hopefully that last box will be checked. Maybe some wikipedian will go to one of his talks [2] and ask these questions. Ploversegg ( talk) 18:24, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
An unregistered editor has been fighting an edit-war over Desset el al. on the basis that their research has not yet been backed by independent researchers. Regarding this:
Manfred Krebernik, an expert on Near Eastern Studies at Germany’s University of Jena, finds Desset’s case “mostly convincing.” Matthew Stolper, an Assyriologist at the University of Chicago, says, “The argument is clear, coherent and plausible.” Piotr Steinkeller, an Assyriologist at Harvard University, is “quite convinced” by the decipherment, which he hails as “a major achievement.” None were involved in the research.
Although this news article is not an academic paper or anything, it does at least provide some indication that Desset et al.'s work has been well-received by (at least some) independent researchers, and not just by journalists. – Scyrme ( talk) 01:12, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
symbols for Pu appear in Indus script by itselfwhen the Indus script certainly is undeciphered. The values of some Linear Elamite signs were known long before Desset et al.'s work thanks to bigraphic inscriptions which allowed Linear Elamite to be partially deciphered. No such artefacts are known to exist for the Indus script. – Scyrme ( talk) 19:22, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
I came to this Wikipedia article after reading
www
I agree that there is a middle ground to be walked here. LE was already partially deciphered (as of 2019). The issue is whether it is now fully deciphered. Certainly I would say that Desset has pushed the decipherment process further along. Whether or not he got EVERYTHING right awaits the scientific process. And remember that other scripts considered "deciphered", like Mayan, are still not fully deciphered. Ploversegg ( talk) 17:22, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
It [i.e. Desset et al. (2022)] is a very recent study, and as far as I can see, there is no peer-reviewed publication that has cited it yet.– Austronesier ( talk) 17:57, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
Having read the referenced section in Possehl (2002) I believe the Indus comparison section in this article is undue and removed it as such, but this was reversed by an unregistered editor. Possehl (2002) does mention Linear Elamite, but does so in a casual way which appears to conflate Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite. The actual substance of what he says appears to be about the pictographic Proto-Elamite script, which is the term he uses most. I don't think Possehl (2002) is a sufficient reference for the comparison, given how little he actually says about the relationship. If this section is to be kept, then at least a better source is needed to establish that the topic is worth including here. As a note, the article for Proto-Elamite only briefly mentions the comparisons in a single line, and does not devote a whole (sub)section to it. If it's undue there, then it's definitely undue here. – Scyrme ( talk) 02:06, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
The Proto-Elamite, or Linear Elamite, script of the Iranian Plateau is also pictographic and roughly contemporaneous with the Indus script. ... There is even better correspondence between this script and that of the Indus Civilization than there is between Sumerian and Indus. ... The correspondence between the pictographs of Proto-Elamite and Indus script is close enough that G. R. Hunter noted: " ... that they are unrelated in origin seems to be contradicted by the number of resemblances that seem to be too close to be explained by coincidence."20 Fairservis once did a transliteration of a Linear Elamite tablet into the Indus writing system, further documenting the close correspondence between the two.21
@
Ploversegg: The reference to Dahl (2009) at
Linear Elamite § Classification might need to be amended further in light of his more recent views. Actually, his closing statements aren't actually too far off from what's in the 2023 article: It is also possible to speculate that certain signs from the proto-Elamite writing system ... were reused some 800 years later when the so-called linear Elamite texts were written. Such suggestions can serve as possible explanations for the fact that some linear Elamite signs have proto-Elamite parallels ... but we can also be more daring and suggest that the linear Elamite display texts represented a limited-use writing system created from scratch in re-action to the encroaching cultural powers of Mesopotamia...
That said, it may need to be amended even on the basis of just what's in the 2009 publication; "limited-use writing system
" isn't "not a writing system". Although, Dahl (2009) also seems to emphasise the difference between "display" and "non-display texts", and he seems most sceptical of the latter which he suggests only mimic the former without necessarily sharing any linguistic relationship.
Unless I've misread, "limited-use writing system" would only cover the very small number of "display texts", the writing of which was constructed rather than arising from a living tradition of writing, while the "non-display" "pseudo-glyphs" are unlikely to be writing in his view (as of 2009). – Scyrme ( talk) 07:31, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
Elamite texts such as “O” (Sb 9382)28 , “M” (Sb 17832) etc, which may then be examples of late 3rd millennium scribes attempting to copy signs from old tablets". Doesn't require guesswork regarding unknown Elamite religious beliefs/practices, unlike his suggestions in 2009 ("
abracadabra texts"). – Scyrme ( talk) 21:53, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
I guess one issue I have is that from the end of proto-elamite (3000 BC) to whenever the akkadian empire installed a governor in susa (say 2300 BC) there was AFAIK zero writing in the region, at least nothing has been found and a lot of holes have been dug. So there was no local scribal tradition to build on. By the time of LE (if I understand the timing) there were two (2) functional and in use writing systems Akkadian Cuneiform and Elamite Cuneiform. Clearly LE didn't crib from them. And there were probably old PE tablets around but clearly LS didn't crib from that either. So the easy answer would be the LE was created in a vacuum. Anyway, I suppose for me the key question would be "is there any information content?". If not then you just have decoration, or at most "potters marks" or heraldic symbols (see - indus valley script). One problem for me is that yes I have poked a lot of site articles in the area but they've been mostly drive bys, I don't have the "feel" for the region the way I do for Mesopotamia, S Anatolia, and N Syria, where I can get inside the head of what the people there were doing. So I don't have a good sense of how LE would happen in the Elamite context. We will see what I think after I finish reading.:-) Ploversegg ( talk) 00:34, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
I think I'll read Desset 2018 first as I haven't previously read it [3]. And I can totally see the Ogham thing.:-) Ploversegg ( talk) 03:08, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
@ Scyrme: Caught up on reading. Desset 2022 as I understand it makes three claims 1) he has mostly figured out the Old Elamite language, 2) he has largely deciphered LE, and 3) that he has figured out a sort of "theory of descendancy" tying all the languages of the region together including LE being an evolutionary form of PE. Dahl 2023 only addressed the latter point and IMHO shredded it completely. And yes Dahl does allow the possibility that when LE was invented in Susa that some PE sign forms were part of that process (people keep heirlooms). Both Sesset and Dahl mention forcoming papers on this which I'm sure will add to the discussion. :-) Ploversegg ( talk) 22:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm confused about the LE articles "new" way of classifying the corpus (east/west/lowland) vs the usual alphabetic way which every paper I have read, even recent ones use. Even the main online text depository [5]. I see the ref for this is a tertiary source, and an "encyclopedia" even. If this really is the new official way for handling the corpus (and not a single researcher trying to shop a new way) then that is fine but I am just perplexed as for me it comes out of left field. Ploversegg ( talk) 14:48, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Look at his latest articles at Academia, like this one: https://www.academia.edu/76550129
"The title of the dedicatee on the Marv Dasht vessel bearing Late PIW inscription Q suggests that she may come from the East. The beginning of the inscription reads: za-na | ma-ra-p2-š-ša-i-r | šu-wa-r-a-su, “(I?) the lady of Marapša(y)i, Šůwar-Asu”." 5.106.253.44 ( talk) 06:33, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Has anything more happened in the way of support for this proposed decipherment? Maybe translating some of the Susa texts for example? I've been clear that I have some concerns about the proposal, starting with how very little we know about Old Elamite, the underlying language that Desset assumes are encoded by LE, but I would be delighted if it turns out to be the real deal. Ploversegg ( talk) 00:58, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Linear Elamite article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This page should be deleted or redone in its entirety as it does not live up to the standards in the field of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. It has too many contested and unproven claims, and links to unrelated items. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JLDahl ( talk • contribs) 13:03, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
@ पाटलिपुत्र and Ploversegg: Desset et al. have published an English-language paper in the latest July issue of Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie . I've already added a citation for the paper to "Further reading" with its doi, so it's easy to find and can be easily referenced with {{ sfnp}}. – Scyrme ( talk) 16:14, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
Cool! I admit I've been a bit doubtful after he took his work on a press tour and speaking thing without having published, which reminded me of the old days the people kept popping up with "decipherments" of hieroglyphics. And he also was trying to extend it to some uber framework for elamite languages, which was not a good sign. [1] Still, his other work has been excellent and I'll read the paper and if it holds up all will be forgiven! I certainly hope this is the case :-) Ploversegg ( talk) 19:02, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
I gave the article a quick read. A long thorough paper which fortunately Desset had already covered a lot of in his earlier papers. I would say
Anyway, I was going to say that LE is now "partially deciphered" but that was probably true in 2019 so how about "largely deciphered"? Given how few exemplars Desset has to work with that is pretty impressive. Ploversegg ( talk) 03:07, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
Just so that everybody knows, and in order not to duplicate efforts, I am working on a Public Domain "Linear Elamite alpha-syllabary" table (attached), referenced from Desset et al. (2022) of course. It will take some time to complete with my own typography, maybe a week or two. Any comment welcome (the sooner the better), especially regarding the adequacy of the table structure. I will update regularly as I move forward. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 11:40, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
I'll take a look. Nice work being done! I was thinking maybe some input from the Desset paper could help the Elamite languages article. Has anyone else wondered about the fact that in a sea of people speaking semitic, anatolian etc family languages we had an island of isolates (Kassite, Elamite, Sumerian, and Hurrian - despite what the broken Hurro-Urartian languages article says). Odd. Ploversegg ( talk) 17:33, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
For the sign table: Done
पाटलिपुत्र
Pat
(talk)
18:17, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
The article currently reads:
It is often claimed that Linear Elamite is a syllabic writing system derived from the older Proto-Elamite writing system, although this has not been proven.
For this it cites Desset (2018a), but looking over it (it's linked in the article), I don't see where Desset says this or anything close to this. IIRC, Desset does describe it as a syllabic writing system now that he's (apparently) deciphered it, and it's plausible that others have speculated that it was a syllabic writing system based on the analysis bilingual and bigraphical texts, so perhaps it has often been said, idk. However, I didn't see any of this being described in the source provided. In-fact, Desset says that it was "probably" a mixed system in his 2018a contribution to The Elamite World (although Desset cites someone else when saying so). Unless I was careless and missed the relevant part of the paper, this line probably needs to be deleted. If I did miss it, whatever the paper says may need to be re-evaluated in light Desset's evolving views since 2018 (which he has commented on in interviews, iirc). -- Scyrme ( talk) 17:45, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
@ Awanir: You restored your addition of "erroneously" after Ploversegg removed it; could you explain why? Does the the reference provided state that the identification is false? If so, could you provide the page? If not, do you have another source which does say so? – Scyrme ( talk) 00:33, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
A few words in the edit comment often forestalls this sort of issue, something I have certainly given short shrift to myself on occasion. I think everyone here was operating in good faith. Given the proposed translation by Desset the statue would indeed be misidentified. I say proposed because it hasn't been reviewed yet. On more than one occasion I remember reading what I thought was a fine paper only to then find that Brinkman had torn the paper COMPLETELY to shreds. :-) So yes its a nice paper and in a reputable journal and supported by Desset's early work but it not quite a done deal yet. I expect soon we will see reviews appear and hopefully that last box will be checked. Maybe some wikipedian will go to one of his talks [2] and ask these questions. Ploversegg ( talk) 18:24, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
An unregistered editor has been fighting an edit-war over Desset el al. on the basis that their research has not yet been backed by independent researchers. Regarding this:
Manfred Krebernik, an expert on Near Eastern Studies at Germany’s University of Jena, finds Desset’s case “mostly convincing.” Matthew Stolper, an Assyriologist at the University of Chicago, says, “The argument is clear, coherent and plausible.” Piotr Steinkeller, an Assyriologist at Harvard University, is “quite convinced” by the decipherment, which he hails as “a major achievement.” None were involved in the research.
Although this news article is not an academic paper or anything, it does at least provide some indication that Desset et al.'s work has been well-received by (at least some) independent researchers, and not just by journalists. – Scyrme ( talk) 01:12, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
symbols for Pu appear in Indus script by itselfwhen the Indus script certainly is undeciphered. The values of some Linear Elamite signs were known long before Desset et al.'s work thanks to bigraphic inscriptions which allowed Linear Elamite to be partially deciphered. No such artefacts are known to exist for the Indus script. – Scyrme ( talk) 19:22, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
I came to this Wikipedia article after reading
www
I agree that there is a middle ground to be walked here. LE was already partially deciphered (as of 2019). The issue is whether it is now fully deciphered. Certainly I would say that Desset has pushed the decipherment process further along. Whether or not he got EVERYTHING right awaits the scientific process. And remember that other scripts considered "deciphered", like Mayan, are still not fully deciphered. Ploversegg ( talk) 17:22, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
It [i.e. Desset et al. (2022)] is a very recent study, and as far as I can see, there is no peer-reviewed publication that has cited it yet.– Austronesier ( talk) 17:57, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
Having read the referenced section in Possehl (2002) I believe the Indus comparison section in this article is undue and removed it as such, but this was reversed by an unregistered editor. Possehl (2002) does mention Linear Elamite, but does so in a casual way which appears to conflate Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite. The actual substance of what he says appears to be about the pictographic Proto-Elamite script, which is the term he uses most. I don't think Possehl (2002) is a sufficient reference for the comparison, given how little he actually says about the relationship. If this section is to be kept, then at least a better source is needed to establish that the topic is worth including here. As a note, the article for Proto-Elamite only briefly mentions the comparisons in a single line, and does not devote a whole (sub)section to it. If it's undue there, then it's definitely undue here. – Scyrme ( talk) 02:06, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
The Proto-Elamite, or Linear Elamite, script of the Iranian Plateau is also pictographic and roughly contemporaneous with the Indus script. ... There is even better correspondence between this script and that of the Indus Civilization than there is between Sumerian and Indus. ... The correspondence between the pictographs of Proto-Elamite and Indus script is close enough that G. R. Hunter noted: " ... that they are unrelated in origin seems to be contradicted by the number of resemblances that seem to be too close to be explained by coincidence."20 Fairservis once did a transliteration of a Linear Elamite tablet into the Indus writing system, further documenting the close correspondence between the two.21
@
Ploversegg: The reference to Dahl (2009) at
Linear Elamite § Classification might need to be amended further in light of his more recent views. Actually, his closing statements aren't actually too far off from what's in the 2023 article: It is also possible to speculate that certain signs from the proto-Elamite writing system ... were reused some 800 years later when the so-called linear Elamite texts were written. Such suggestions can serve as possible explanations for the fact that some linear Elamite signs have proto-Elamite parallels ... but we can also be more daring and suggest that the linear Elamite display texts represented a limited-use writing system created from scratch in re-action to the encroaching cultural powers of Mesopotamia...
That said, it may need to be amended even on the basis of just what's in the 2009 publication; "limited-use writing system
" isn't "not a writing system". Although, Dahl (2009) also seems to emphasise the difference between "display" and "non-display texts", and he seems most sceptical of the latter which he suggests only mimic the former without necessarily sharing any linguistic relationship.
Unless I've misread, "limited-use writing system" would only cover the very small number of "display texts", the writing of which was constructed rather than arising from a living tradition of writing, while the "non-display" "pseudo-glyphs" are unlikely to be writing in his view (as of 2009). – Scyrme ( talk) 07:31, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
Elamite texts such as “O” (Sb 9382)28 , “M” (Sb 17832) etc, which may then be examples of late 3rd millennium scribes attempting to copy signs from old tablets". Doesn't require guesswork regarding unknown Elamite religious beliefs/practices, unlike his suggestions in 2009 ("
abracadabra texts"). – Scyrme ( talk) 21:53, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
I guess one issue I have is that from the end of proto-elamite (3000 BC) to whenever the akkadian empire installed a governor in susa (say 2300 BC) there was AFAIK zero writing in the region, at least nothing has been found and a lot of holes have been dug. So there was no local scribal tradition to build on. By the time of LE (if I understand the timing) there were two (2) functional and in use writing systems Akkadian Cuneiform and Elamite Cuneiform. Clearly LE didn't crib from them. And there were probably old PE tablets around but clearly LS didn't crib from that either. So the easy answer would be the LE was created in a vacuum. Anyway, I suppose for me the key question would be "is there any information content?". If not then you just have decoration, or at most "potters marks" or heraldic symbols (see - indus valley script). One problem for me is that yes I have poked a lot of site articles in the area but they've been mostly drive bys, I don't have the "feel" for the region the way I do for Mesopotamia, S Anatolia, and N Syria, where I can get inside the head of what the people there were doing. So I don't have a good sense of how LE would happen in the Elamite context. We will see what I think after I finish reading.:-) Ploversegg ( talk) 00:34, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
I think I'll read Desset 2018 first as I haven't previously read it [3]. And I can totally see the Ogham thing.:-) Ploversegg ( talk) 03:08, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
@ Scyrme: Caught up on reading. Desset 2022 as I understand it makes three claims 1) he has mostly figured out the Old Elamite language, 2) he has largely deciphered LE, and 3) that he has figured out a sort of "theory of descendancy" tying all the languages of the region together including LE being an evolutionary form of PE. Dahl 2023 only addressed the latter point and IMHO shredded it completely. And yes Dahl does allow the possibility that when LE was invented in Susa that some PE sign forms were part of that process (people keep heirlooms). Both Sesset and Dahl mention forcoming papers on this which I'm sure will add to the discussion. :-) Ploversegg ( talk) 22:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm confused about the LE articles "new" way of classifying the corpus (east/west/lowland) vs the usual alphabetic way which every paper I have read, even recent ones use. Even the main online text depository [5]. I see the ref for this is a tertiary source, and an "encyclopedia" even. If this really is the new official way for handling the corpus (and not a single researcher trying to shop a new way) then that is fine but I am just perplexed as for me it comes out of left field. Ploversegg ( talk) 14:48, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Look at his latest articles at Academia, like this one: https://www.academia.edu/76550129
"The title of the dedicatee on the Marv Dasht vessel bearing Late PIW inscription Q suggests that she may come from the East. The beginning of the inscription reads: za-na | ma-ra-p2-š-ša-i-r | šu-wa-r-a-su, “(I?) the lady of Marapša(y)i, Šůwar-Asu”." 5.106.253.44 ( talk) 06:33, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Has anything more happened in the way of support for this proposed decipherment? Maybe translating some of the Susa texts for example? I've been clear that I have some concerns about the proposal, starting with how very little we know about Old Elamite, the underlying language that Desset assumes are encoded by LE, but I would be delighted if it turns out to be the real deal. Ploversegg ( talk) 00:58, 14 July 2024 (UTC)