Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

ManannanMacLir74 t1_ja5nqqy wrote

Reply to comment by Devil-sAdvocate in 4,500-year-old Sumerian temple dedicated to mighty thunder god discovered in Iraq. by Rifletree

Many scholars actually argue for simultaneous evolution of both Egypt and Mesopotamia and no Mesopotamia had contemporaries so they weren't the first at all to have a religion which is absolutely absurd to say.But there is evidence for a divergent evolution especially when it comes to writing between Mesopotamia and Egypt. I keep bringing up Egypt because it's the oldest contemporary civilization to Mesopotamia

25

Devil-sAdvocate t1_ja5zkr5 wrote

I thought archaeological evidence shows cuneiform dates back to at least 3500 BCE while hieroglyphs date back to around 3100.

18

ManannanMacLir74 t1_ja5zw6h wrote

I'm not a scholar in these fields but I do try to keep up with the latest developments in this debate

−6

ManannanMacLir74 t1_ja5ztbn wrote

All of that is based on old dating and I don't know how it's evidence anymore than it is guessing.

−7

Pademelon1 t1_ja5zqqu wrote

The Indus Valley was also contemporaneous

14

ManannanMacLir74 t1_ja601lb wrote

Absolutely and we still don't know how to read the Indus script but it doesn't help that some scholars argue that the Indus script isn't a script at all which opens a can of worms in that debate

14

thestoplereffect t1_ja64goi wrote

If it's not a script what could it be?

3

ManannanMacLir74 t1_ja6hppo wrote

I don't know but this is the same problem with the script of the Vinca culture which predates Mesopotamia.Some scholars say it's a script and other's say it's not

8

vmp916 t1_ja6juw7 wrote

How came some say it’s a script while others say it’s not? A representation of a spoken language which in modern day would be script but back then it could mean representation of sounds or meanings behind sounds. How is that not a script?

3

Flammenschwert t1_ja80dob wrote

There's kind of a big muddy area between abstract symbols and a full on script, which is specifically symbols representing spoken language. They may have had symbolic meaning without directly standing in for language. For an example in the modern world, a roadsign indicating a turn has symbolic meaning, but that doesn't make it a script. The Nike logo definitely stands for a particular meaning, but it's not part of a script either. It's unknown whether or not the Indus Valley script is a proper script or if it has non-language symbolic meaning.

1