Comments on: Ancient Documents On Line

By: Dan J

Dan J — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:02:33 +0000

I saw the item about the launch of the World digital Library in Wikipedia’s news section and promptly spent a couple hours perusing available documents. I can tell already that the site is going to take up more of my time in the future. Sometimes it just isn’t very productive being fascinated by such material.

By: DrA

DrA — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:45:05 +0000

When in graduate school sometime in the middle of last century, my wife was in history, and I met a professor of ancient history. I wondered why so few students (0) were working with such an interesting and well known scholar. For starters you needed to be able to read Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Depending upon what you studied, you might need hieroylphics, Sanskrit, Sumerian cuniform, and what all. Usually about 5 dead languages did the trick. And to think I worried about my language requirement for the PhD.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:06:55 +0000

I’m not reading the original language, though that would be fun. It all looks like gobbledygook to me.

By: Jason Thibeault

Jason Thibeault — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:31:15 +0000

Sumerian? Not exactly light bathroom reading. Tell us when you get to the stuff about the Elder Gods (or alternately, debunk that Lovecraft ever read any source materials in “Ancient Sumerian”).

By: Mankel

Mankel — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:38:56 +0000

When you finish you can take into the hieroglyphs or the Mayan, no?