“Signing off on the earliest writing” with Dr. Martin Worthington

The two earliest writing systems known are Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian Cuneiform. Both originated as pictures (though Cuneiform signs quickly became very stylised, and unrecognisable). By which principles, then, were pictures used to represent words?

This talk will look at the Mesopotamian side, drawing on the speaker’s current research. We will meet some very intuitive examples that still make sense to us today, like writing the verb ‘to mix’ with a picture of a cake, as well as more problematic cases which require the toolkit of philological tricks.

Martin Worthington is Al-Maktoum Associate Professor in Middle Eastern Studies at Trinity College Dublin. He specialises in Ancient Near Eastern languages and literatures, and is currently battling with a book on the logic of the Cuneiform script.

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