Abigail Tan

Congratulations!

οὐδεὶς γὰρ οὕτω ἀνόητος ἐστὶ ὅστις πόλεμον πρὸ εἰρήνης αἱρέεται: ἐν μὲν γὰρ τῇ οἱ παῖδες τοὺς πατέρας θάπτουσι, ἐν δὲ τῷ οἱ πατέρες τοὺς παῖδας.

“No one is so foolish as to choose war over peace. In peace sons bury their fathers, in war fathers bury their sons”

Herodotus 1.87

#TIL "the LORD of Hosts" (𐡉𐡄𐡄 𐡑𐡁𐡀𐡕, [yh]h ṣbʾt) is attested as a divine name on an #Aramaic ostracon from Elephantine. (First line, starting with the second 𐡄.)

To our lord, the most merciful and most pious Maxentius, unconquered and most foresighted, forever Augustus. Manlius Rusticanus, of eminentissimus rank, praetorian prefect, devoted to his divine spirit and majesty, [set this up]. (CIL VI, 36949)
(He did not remain unconquered)

DOMINO NOSTRO CLEMENTISSIMO ET PIISSIMO MAXENTIO INVICTO ET PROVIDENTISS(IMO) SEMPER AVG(VSTO) MANLI(VS) RVSTICANVS V(IR) EM(INENTISSIMVS) PRAEF(ECTVS) PRAET(ORIO) DEVOTVS N(VMINI) M(AIESTATI)Q(VE) E(IVS)

Inscription from the Roman Forum, dedicated to Maxentius #EpigraphyTuesday

DOMINO NOSTRO
CLEMENTISSIMO
ET PIISSIMO
MAXENTIO
INVICTO
ET PROVIDENTISS(IMO)
SEMPER AVG(VSTO)
MANLI(VS) RVSTICANVS
V(IR) EM(INENTISSIMVS) PRAEF(ECTVS) PRAET(ORIO)
DEVOTVS N(VMINI) M(AIESTATI)Q(VE) E(IVS)

(📷own)

CH 196-199 (from Huehnergard 2011)

Hammurabi's "eye for an eye" law - if a man (awīlum) blinded/broke the bone of someone of equal status he would face the same punishment, but only had to pay 1 mina of silver for doing the same to a "commoner" (muškēnum) or half the purchase-price of a slave (wardum)

That seems insane to me, I have no idea why there are still fields where the reviewers can see the author's name as it's so easy to avoid. I still don't think there is any reason to think anyone personally dislikes you just for being enthusiastic - best to just resubmit somewhere else

Does maths not do double-blind review?

A great read that includes good examples of what contributions autodidacts can make when they acquire the training rigorously - it's clear the raging statue-pfp keyboard warriors want no part of that

As the legendary Lübeck Bürgermeister Hinrich Castrop and leader of the Hanseatic League put it in the late 15th century: „it is always easier to hoist the banner of war but a lot more costly taking it down in honour”……

Handcopy of fragmented tablet with 20 lines of cuneiform text separated into three columns List of words in English: cook, to, in, helper, tree, star, to place, field, I, king, lord, enemy, curse, straw, town, pure (Ugaritica 5, 130)

Lexical tablet from Ugarit ca 1400–1100 BCE, it lists words in Akkadian (left column), Hurrian (centre), and (syllabic) Ugaritic (right)

king = [šar-ru] | i-we-er-ni | ma-al-ku
lord = [be]-lu | e-wi-ri | ba-a-lu-ma
enemy = [nak₂]-ru | tu-ur-bi | e-bu
curse = [a-ra]-ru | ši-da-ar-ni | ṣi-il-ya-[tu₄]

Stretch yourself, test yourself, master skills. Think more! Read more! Broaden your mind! Do difficult things! Don't be placated by low-quality dreck. Don't just sit there watching Reels or Shorts. Go beyond.

I worked on a translation of Column IV of the Old Persian version of the Behistun Inscription a little while ago! Have just got round to posting it (alongside DNa and XPh): ahcmt2.user.srcf.net/DB_Column_IV...

Let not the rich person say "in my riches, I am glorious"
(Letter of Aḥiqar, TAD C1.1, Elephantine)

אל יאמר עתירא בעתרי הדיר אנה

Replying on here rather than Twitter again - might be interested in Ugaritic or possibly something else, time permitting!

I’m generally opposed to LLMing everything but can see how with the sheer volume of tablets it could be useful. Do you see this disincentivising teaching of actual languages long-term (similar to how lots of “classics” is taught in translation and people often don’t have skills core to the field)?

Still unclear how I ended up in a nationals-level quiz bowl question at the 2025 Chicago Open, but I’m not complaining. I wonder if anyone got it right. Bonus points to the writer for getting my last name’s pronunciation correct!

I wrote this question - wanted to get some important up-to-date scholarship into the quiz canon, hope it was interesting for those who played

Don't make me tap the "don't make me tap the "logical arguments are necessary in every field" sign" sign

I'm working on a study of Bronze Age axes, and I find it a little hard to articulate why.

* I don't get paid.
* Another journal paper won't make any difference for my employability at this stage.
* Almost nobody knows or cares that these axes exist.

I think the main reasons I do this is

* […]

The Unfinished Story of the Babylonian Version of the Bīsotūn (Behistun) Inscription (DB Bab.)

Hackl, Johannes. 2025. The Unfinished Story of the Babylonian Version of the Bīsotūn (Behistun) Inscription (DB Bab.). Iraq. Published online 2025:1-20. doi:10.1017/irq.2025.10033 This article revisits…

Chicago Assyrian Dictionary vol. 1 (A) - part of entry for alāla

Note also Akkadian alāla, though this word is used more often for singing a work-song (hence e.g. the negativity towards Nabonidus for making the people stop singing it in the Verse Account), or for praise. (CAD vol. 1 below actually compares the onomatopoeia directly to the Greek one)

Chicago Assyrian Dictionary vol. 1 (A) - part of entry for alāla

Note also Akkadian alāla, though this word is used more often for singing a work-song (hence e.g. the negativity towards Nabonidus for making the people stop singing it in the Verse Account), or for praise. (CAD vol. 1 below actually compares the onomatopoeia directly to the Greek one)

Everyone has to start somewhere, I'm sure it'll go well

What does anyone have against Babylonian lapidary?

1929: given to Bibliothèque nationale de France by Paul Perdrizet

#EpigraphyTuesday

Dedication to Serapis, Isis, the Nile and the Theoi Euergetai (Benefactor Gods), Ptolemy III and Berenice II. From #Egypt. #History #Archaeology

[To Sarapidi Isis Neilo / And to King Ptolemy / And to Queen Berenice / Benefactor of the Gods / Kallikrates, son of Antipatros]

Excellent, what's the book?

How long does it take to produce that?

It's so easy for "old" to slide towards meaning not worth caring about, or hopelessly out of reach, when we just need to redirect it towards engaging with a fundamental fascination for the past that a lot of people do indeed have underlying (6/6)

The "unimaginably old" perception is basically the motivation for the Ea-nāṣir meme, which is only really funny because of surprise that ancient people thought the same way we do, which shouldn't fundamentally be surprising (but if it gets more people interested in the field, I'm all for it) (5/n)