Russian linguists and archaeologists have deciphered text, written on a birch bark manuscript, which was found in Staraya Russa town of the Novgorod region and dates back to 14th century. The manuscript, found earlier in July, contains information about salt collecting, which was one of the main occupations in Staraya Russa. The manuscript, discovered in Staraya Russa, is the thousandth message form the past, found at Novgorod digging site since 1951. Archaeologists continue digging, hoping to find other interesting artefacts from ancient times.
Jerusalem's mayor has asked the Turkish government to return a 2,700-year-old tablet uncovered in an ancient subterranean passage in the city, suggesting that it could be a "gesture of goodwill" between allies. Known as the Siloam inscription, the tablet was found in a tunnel hewed to channel water from a spring outside Jerusalem's walls into the city around 700 B.C. a project mentioned in the Old Testament's Book of Chronicles. It was discovered in 1880 and taken by the Holy Land's Ottoman rulers to Istanbul, where it is now in the collection of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.
An expert working at the British Museum has confirmed the existence of an important Biblical figure after deciphering a cuneiform inscription on a small Babylonian clay tablet. Austrian Assyriologist Dr Michael Jursa made the breakthrough discovery confirming the existence of a Babylonian official mentioned in the Old Testament and connected to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. The clay document is dated to the 10th year of Nebuchadnezzar II (595 BC) and names the official, Nebo-Sarsekim. According to chapter 39 of the Book of Jeremiah, he was present at the siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC with Nebuchadnezzar himself. Nebo-Sarsekim is described in the book of Jeremiah as chief eunuch (as the title is now translated, rather than chief officer). Dr Jursas translation of the Babylonian tablet proves that his name was really pronounced as Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, and gives the same title, chief eunuch, in cuneiform script, thereby confirming the accuracy of the Biblical account.
The Fitzwilliam Museum, England, is offering a new chance of discovering an important part in the history of Egyptian religion and thought, by hosting between the 19th of June - the 16th of September a special exhibition, titled "A passport to the Egyptian After-life: The Book of the Dead of Ramose". The Egyptian cult of the death is perhaps the most interesting part of the ancient people, at least for casual admirers, and the care with which they tended to their deceased, through careful, complicated and mysterious rituals, not to mention the enigmatic mummies, is astonishing.
Audio slideshow: Timbuktu's ancient manuscripts Xan Rice talks to historians and scholars in Timbuktu about their efforts to preserve hundreds of thousands of manuscripts dating back to the 11th century. From early copies of the Koran to guides to astronomy and botany, they are the earliest examples of written history in sub-Saharan Africa. The manuscripts dispel the myth that the continent's history was never documented, but many remain in private libraries, packed in wooden trunks or simply buried in the sand. Read more
The first commandment for showing the Dead Sea Scrolls is: "Let there not be too much light." It has been handed down by the Israel Antiquities Authority, custodian of most of the 2,000-year-old parchments and papyri. The scrolls, many pieced together like puzzles from fragments and tatters, contain the oldest known biblical writings - among them a text of the Ten Commandments that will be part of the six-month Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition that opened Friday at the San Diego Natural History Museum.
For 2,000 years, the document written by one of antiquity's greatest mathematicians was ill treated, torn apart and allowed to decay. Now, US historians have decoded the Archimedes book. But is it really new? When the Romans advanced to Sicily in the Second Punic War and finally captured the proud city of Syracuse, one of their soldiers met an old man who, surrounded by the din of battle, was calmly drawing geometric figures in the sand. "Do not disturb my circles," the eccentric old man called out. The legionnaire killed him with his sword. That, at least, is the legend.
Xaar, one of the world's leading suppliers of inkjet technology and an example of ultra modern printing technology, is proud to sponsor an exhibition of one of the finest examples of an ancient coloured document in the world: The Book of the Dead of Ramose at The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. The 3,000 year old document made up of papyrus sheets originally forming a 20m roll, was unveiled on Tuesday 19 June and will be displayed until Sunday 21 September. Visitors will have the rare opportunity to view one of the finest and most recently restored Egyptian Books of the Dead in existence.
Two ancient Iranian manuscripts have been listed on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's Memory of the World Register. The UNESCO has added Bayasanghori Shâhnâmeh (Prince Bayasanghor's Book of the Kings) and The Deed for Endowment: Rab' I-Rashidi (Rab' I-Rashidi Endowment) to the prestigious list to help preserve them for posterity.
For the first time, a text has been found in Old Persian language that shows the written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display. The text is inscribed on a damaged clay tablet from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, now at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. The tablet is an administrative record of the payout of at least 600 quarts of an as-yet unidentified commodity at five villages near Persepolis in about 500 B.C.
Now we can see that Persians living in Persia at the high point of the Persian Empire wrote down ordinary day-to-day matters in Persian language and Persian script. Odd as it seems, that comes as a surprise a very big surprise - Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute.
Old Persian writing was the first of the cuneiform scripts to be deciphered, between about 1800 and 1845. When the script was cracked, scholars saw that the Old Persian language was an ancestor of modern Persian and a relative of Sanskrit. Knowing that, they could understand the inscriptions of Darius, Xerxes and their successors, the kings of the Persian Empire founded by Cyrus the Great in the mid-sixth century B.C. and destroyed by Alexander the Great and his successors after 330 B.C.