The Newly Discovered Tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh | Hacker News Reader

The Newly Discovered Tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh

etc.ancient.eu

174 pointsdiodorus28 comments

For lovers of the ancient world, this sort of thing is more news worthy than a visit from Vatican City's Holiest. Sola lingua bona mortua est...

huskyr above called out the use of ancient.eu's social buttons as being a distraction. But to be honest I've rarely seen a web or native digital library of ancient sources experience that was acceptable to non-scholastic audiences. Take a look at UCLA's CDLI - Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative:

http://cdli.ucla.edu/

A search for "Gilgamesh" yields a trip back to an ancient page layout Endukugga himself might have been more comfortable browsing. I realize these are digital humanities projects funded with scarce grant resources. But I can't help thinking they would appeal to a much wider audience, that would be enriched tremendously by the wisdom of the ancients, if only presented in a more user-friendly manner.

It would be more news worthy if the news were newer. The tablet's discovery was announced in 2014.

From the exact same website:

http://www.ancient.eu/image/3061/

> Sola lingua bona mortua est...

It's hard for me not to understand this as "the only good language [ever?] has died".

"The only good language is a dead language" as a callback to "the only good indian is a dead indian"?

Sheesh, people, masklinn is just quoting old "westerns" that used to be mainstream fifty years ago.

And providing useful info. Calm down, please.

(P.S. Nowadays all that is being remade with "zombies", probably because it's much easier to beat up on the dead. So far.)

Oh, I recognize it as a reference to English. But I don't think Latin can work the same way.

The "sola lingua bona est lingua mortua" version is listed as "Dog Latin" (or mock Latin) in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases_(S)

(Perhaps "unum bonum lingua mortua" would work, as translate.google.com's advises ;-)

Smart move to offer to buy the artifacts without fear of prosecution. They probably saved tons of items which otherwise would have been lost forever.

Unless people start looting artifacts because they know there will be a buyer who won't prosecute them.

The looting in question was an acute episode resulting from the US invasion of Iraq and the rapid disintegration of public institutions and order that followed.

They would have wound up in the hands of rich collectors, where they'd probably be a lot safer than they are in Baghdad right now, a few hundred km from an army which would happily destroy all pre-Islamic artefacts.

Especially this one, which is a story with other gods in it! Can't get much more unislamic than that...

So yeah, as long as ISIS or any of its successors never takes Baghdad it's safe. I'd rather it were in some rich dude's house though.

If they make it to a museum, then the information on the tablets becomes public and therefore very safe. Discovering and preserving the story is more important than the physical tablets.

If it stays here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulaymaniyah_Museum) it is probably safer from IS than basically anywhere else in the region.

Baghdad is still relatively safe, but could be better. I could see them loaning it to the National Museum at some point, but only temporarily, and not for many years.

Speaking of Gilgamesh, what happened to that Kickstarter movie based on Gilgamesh? It has been over 3 years.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1331941187/the-tube-ope...

Latest related blog post is from this month: http://urchn.org/post/sun-and-sky-mini-tutorial

Don't know about that but the Fate Zero anime has Gilgamesh as a main character and is pretty good.

I don't know enough about the epic of Gilgamesh but the Fate series tends to take a lot of freedoms with its interpretation of mythical figures, so it might not be accurate enough for some people.

Ah yes, depends on if you are seeking accuracy or amusement

I really don't want to be 'that' guy, but this article is pretty much unreadable due to the fact that there are six social media buttons hovering over the text. Madness.

http://imgur.com/T4l8UQ4

Yeah, I hate that, too. Maximizing the window worked, though.

It's not good but it's far from unreadable.

I don't see those, thanks to NoScript and Privacy Badger :)

And yet, running NoScript, here is how it looks:

http://postimg.org/image/i2blngyfv/

No social media buttons hovering over the page at all.

I could do that. I'm just feeling pity for the 99.9% of internet users who don't know how to use NoScript / AdBlock / whatever.

If you have adblock plus, go here: https://easylist.adblockplus.org/en/

and add "Fanboy's Annoyance List". That includes "Fanboy's Social Blocking List", which is also there.

I have not seen social media buttons on the internet in a long time and it is incredible.

ublock origin here, did not see them at all.

> pretty much unreadable

Could be worse: http://i1.wp.com/etc.ancient.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/O...

When a future race digs up our ruins I wonder what they will think the social media buttons mean.

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