Audio files of ancient Akkadian literature

READINGS FROM ANCIENT AKKADIAN LITERATURE in the original Akkadian have been made available by Cambridge University as online audio files. The readings include excerpts from the Gilgamesh Epic, the Atrahasis Flood Epic, the so-called Babylonian Job story, and the Babylonian Creation Epic. The Daily Mail has a story on the project:

Heard for the first time in 2,000 years: Scientists post readings of ancient Babylonian poems online

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:37 AM on 29th September 2010

Scholars have rediscovered how to speak the language of the King Of Babylon,

Scholars have rediscovered how to speak the language of the King Of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar

The ancient language of Babylonian can be heard for the first time in almost 2,000 years after Cambridge University scholars posted readings and poems online.

Babylonian, one of the chief languages of Ancient Mesopotamia, dates back as far as the second millennium BC but died out around 2,000 years ago.

However, Cambridge historians have resurrected the ancient tongue by discovering how the language was pronounced and spoken.

Researchers have now recorded readings of ancient tablets, poems and laws, and posted them online.

The project is the brainchild of Dr Martin Worthington, of the University of Cambridge, who described uncovering the pronunciation as 'detective work'.

These tablets have not been read aloud for over 2,000 years and working out how Babylonian was pronounced required detailed forensic investigation.

[...]

The project website is here.

We probably know better how ancient Akkadian was pronounced than we do how ancient Hebrew or Aramaic was pronounced. There is much more epigraphic evidence for Akkadian and it is vocalized, albeit in a perversely complicated writing system.

UPDATE: Akkadian next? Google adds Latin to machine translation service.

UPDATE (2 October): The AP has a story on the project here.