Good morning!
I was in the Semitic language group for our recent Rosetta project. This was interesting for several reasons. (Sorry there aren't more pictures!)
For one, this is a fairly recent set of civilizations, mostly made up of Hebrew and Arabic speakers. (Notably, our group's civilizations spoke just these two languages.) I feel that these places, peoples, and times don't fit very well into our European slant on Civ I, but I also feel that they are fascinating and very much worth including. For example, studying medieval Islamic culture feels much more like studying Renaissance Europe, as scholarship, trade, and communications were all alive and well. This civilization was a significant source of classical Greek texts and philosophy during this time, as mentioned in class. This has been a source of confusion to me as we have been directed away from written culture while apparently expected to study an inherently writing-based culture. (Still, this confusion drove me to uncover several interesting facts about Islam/Arabic's transition from oral to written knowledge. I have yet to get a well-founded perspective on this historical period. It's relevant today given that many modern terrorists are motivated by specific readings of the Koran. Hmm...how are the Hadith and old naqqali culture related to present-day extremism?)
That being said, it was very informative to try to reproduce a simple piece of text in these languages. I was tasked with procuring the material on which to write.
Papyrus is as authentic as it comes, right? (We decided this based on our collective understanding of the cultures aat the time.) Did we not hear in special collections that the bookstore sells it? Whether or not we did, well, sadly, they don't. (The bookstore manager gave me a really strange look when I asked, as if I'd requested a blank obelisk...) The HFAC supply room was equally bereft of any reproduction of this ancient media.
It seems that these peoples often used parchment in their work as well, and the bookstore sells that! Well, sort of.
Turns out BYU likes animals.
They sell a specific finish and weight of paper called parchment that does not suffer from the...irregularities of traditional parchment sources. One of these papers had a nice, uniform "old" print on it, and, barring an overnight voyage to Egypt or to a tannery, we settled on the very pseudoauthentic paper. It should be noted here that the Islamic cultures were some of the first to adopt paper as a writing material from the Orient, so this wasn't entirely inaccurate. :)
With the medium decided upon, we proceeded to become copyists. The Internet provided us with Koran and Torah passages in their original (albeit vowel-marked) language. Turns out that writing Hebrew using a fountain pen is difficult. Arabic, with its flowing lines and curves, was easier, but still awkward. This is in part because writing with a fountain pen is difficult all on its own. Just getting the ink flowing is an art that only one of us ever 'got.' My attempt netted me a mouthful of ink.
Remember those wax tablets the Romans used? That group mentioned that they were sometimes used for composition and redaction of something that was then copied onto a less-temporary and less-forgiving medium. Well, we did the same thing. We carefully reproduced the characters from the computer screen using pencil, and then proceeded to fill them in with the pen. I think this two-part process was what rendered our Arabic "illegible" to the professor who helped the other group translate our product.
I think the Egyptian fiasco has been covered well enough elsewhere, so I will merely say that I hadn't the remotest idea just how fiendishly complex hieroglyphics were. Nor did the other group, I daresay. It's no wonder that classical Egyptian remained uncracked until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone!
(Also, while I do agree that our midterms have been amazing as learning instruments, they have not been examinations.)
I was in the Semitic language group for our recent Rosetta project. This was interesting for several reasons. (Sorry there aren't more pictures!)
For one, this is a fairly recent set of civilizations, mostly made up of Hebrew and Arabic speakers. (Notably, our group's civilizations spoke just these two languages.) I feel that these places, peoples, and times don't fit very well into our European slant on Civ I, but I also feel that they are fascinating and very much worth including. For example, studying medieval Islamic culture feels much more like studying Renaissance Europe, as scholarship, trade, and communications were all alive and well. This civilization was a significant source of classical Greek texts and philosophy during this time, as mentioned in class. This has been a source of confusion to me as we have been directed away from written culture while apparently expected to study an inherently writing-based culture. (Still, this confusion drove me to uncover several interesting facts about Islam/Arabic's transition from oral to written knowledge. I have yet to get a well-founded perspective on this historical period. It's relevant today given that many modern terrorists are motivated by specific readings of the Koran. Hmm...how are the Hadith and old naqqali culture related to present-day extremism?)
That being said, it was very informative to try to reproduce a simple piece of text in these languages. I was tasked with procuring the material on which to write.
Papyrus is as authentic as it comes, right? (We decided this based on our collective understanding of the cultures aat the time.) Did we not hear in special collections that the bookstore sells it? Whether or not we did, well, sadly, they don't. (The bookstore manager gave me a really strange look when I asked, as if I'd requested a blank obelisk...) The HFAC supply room was equally bereft of any reproduction of this ancient media.
It seems that these peoples often used parchment in their work as well, and the bookstore sells that! Well, sort of.
Turns out BYU likes animals.
They sell a specific finish and weight of paper called parchment that does not suffer from the...irregularities of traditional parchment sources. One of these papers had a nice, uniform "old" print on it, and, barring an overnight voyage to Egypt or to a tannery, we settled on the very pseudoauthentic paper. It should be noted here that the Islamic cultures were some of the first to adopt paper as a writing material from the Orient, so this wasn't entirely inaccurate. :)
With the medium decided upon, we proceeded to become copyists. The Internet provided us with Koran and Torah passages in their original (albeit vowel-marked) language. Turns out that writing Hebrew using a fountain pen is difficult. Arabic, with its flowing lines and curves, was easier, but still awkward. This is in part because writing with a fountain pen is difficult all on its own. Just getting the ink flowing is an art that only one of us ever 'got.' My attempt netted me a mouthful of ink.
Remember those wax tablets the Romans used? That group mentioned that they were sometimes used for composition and redaction of something that was then copied onto a less-temporary and less-forgiving medium. Well, we did the same thing. We carefully reproduced the characters from the computer screen using pencil, and then proceeded to fill them in with the pen. I think this two-part process was what rendered our Arabic "illegible" to the professor who helped the other group translate our product.
(Also, while I do agree that our midterms have been amazing as learning instruments, they have not been examinations.)
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