GET READY TO PARTY!

The team Histoire et Archeologie de l'Orient Cunéiforme/Archeologies et Sciences de l'Antiquité (HAROC/ArScAn) of the CNRS invites you to the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the decipherment of cuneiform Akkadian.

In 1857, the Royal Asiatic Society of London entrusted under seal a copy of a cuneiform inscription that had just been found at Assur to the British scholars E. Hincks, H. Rawlinson and F. Talbot, and to the French scholar J. Oppert. Their translations, read on May 25th, were close enough to prove that syllabic cuneiform had indeed been deciphered by those scholars. [For an internet display of the ensuing
article, go to http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/iaa/RAScuco.html]

Within the frame of the "Fête de la Science", from October 8th to 14th, 2007, the team HAROC/ArScAn (UMR 7041 of the CNRS, Maison René Ginouvès d'Archéologie et d'Ethnologie ) proposes two cultural events to celebrate this anniversary.

AN EXHIBITION, "Les écritures cunéiformes et leur déchiffrement" in the hall of the Maison René Ginouvès is set for October 8th to the 12th, 2007. The main steps of the rediscovery of the Ancient Near East, as well as of the decipherment of the main cuneiform scripts (ideographic, syllabic and alphabetic) will be presented through fifteen posters.

A SERIES OF 11 LECTURES on the topic "Histoires de déchiffrements" will take place on October Friday 12, from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm, at the University of Paris X, Nanterre, bat. B, conference room. The eleven lectures will deal with the rediscovery of the Ancient Near East and the decipherment, the personality of the decipherers, the mechanism and use of cuneiforms scripts, but also of the Phoenician, Linear B, and Maya scripts.

(From Cécile Michel on the Agade list. The conference program in French can be downloaded here.)