[kobeya]

Mesopotamian studies is really interesting. There's a lot of intact records from archives that were found in the basements or lower levels of buildings that were destroyed in fires -- clay tablets only break under the most intense heat.

Most are administrative records, but as TFA shows even these can be incredibly interesting. Only a small percentage have been translated -- there's not that many people with the diligence to learn cuneiform! But if you want to go to Oxford and spend 5-10 years learning ancient dialects and writing systems, it could be quite rewarding.

[spynxic]

> But if you want to go to Oxford and spend 5-10 years learning ancient dialects and writing systems, it could be quite rewarding.

What of an online course?

[pachydermfort]

This is a good site to visit for those interested in learning more about cuneiform script and the Akkadian language (an ancient language related to Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew).

http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/knpp/cuneiformrevealed/in...

The site itself is a public outreach site about divination during the late Assyrian empire (c. 680 - 620 BC), so there's a lot of interesting information on there.

You'll need to install a Unicode cuneiform font if one isn't already present on your system. Unhelpfully, Unicode doesn't distinguish between cuneiform sign forms from 2000 BC and those from c.800 BC, which are graphically simplified and easier to learn for a beginner (though less aesthetically pleasing). The 800 BC signs (called the 'Neo-Assyrian' script) are usually those taught in a first-year Akkadian class.

The 'CuneiformNA' font is available for download here: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/doc/help/visitingoracc/fonts/

Also on that page is a CuneiformOB (Old Babylonian) font, for the 2000BC sign forms.

Alternatively, Google provide a cuneiform font as part of their Noto project. These are also Old Babylonian sign forms:

https://www.google.com/get/noto/#sans-xsux

[kobeya]

If you know of one, post it in the comments.

The primary issue though is that the source material isn't digitized yet.

[pachydermfort]

As it happens, whilst the sources mentioned in the article (Old Assyrian archival texts excavated in Kaneš, Turkey) are unfortunately not yet available online, there are a substantial number of cuneiform texts available in interactive, scholarly-edited forms on the Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/projectlist.html

Admittedly there are swathes of cuneiform tablets which aren't available online yet (for example the OA texts, Old Babylonian letters, many tablets that haven't even been entered into museum catalogues yet) but the online corpus presents some very rich material.

There is also a Github repository https://github.com/oracc

(NB I am not affiliated with Oracc but I do use it heavily for research and am a big fan!)