§14 Appendix: Old Sumerian Signs from Labat

In the pages that follow, I have reproduced my own hand drawn copies of all of the examples of the old Sumerian picture writing that I could find in the sign list of [La].

§15 References

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Professor Michel Broue and the Department de Mathematique et Informatique of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris for permission to use their computer facilities. These included SUN workstations, a Macintosh computer and the optical scanner that was used to include the figures in the text. The author wishes to thank the editors of Verlag Helbing and Lichtenhahn for permission to reproduce some figures from the book [Jenn]. I am also indebted to correspondents on the USENET newsgroups sci.math, comp.lang.postscript and comp.text.desktop, as well as the sta at the DMI at ENS, especially J.-C.Lovato and Jacques Beigbeder, for their help with innumerable questions and technical problems connected with the preparation of this work. I also thank B.Davis-Ferro, M.K.Adler and M.Wolinski for their help in finding certain references and to S.Weil for some help with one of the inscriptions. I am also indebted to M.K.Adler for considerable help in contacting publishers regarding copyright permission and to Victoria Moussaron for pointing out a number of typographical errors in Version 1.1.

The design, layout, typesetting, artwork and contents of this publication and its cover are due to the author, Allan Adler. The buckyball was taken from a demo accompanying the computational chemistry program GAMESS. The author is greatly indebted to Henry Young for producing the browsable versions (HTML and PDF) of Labyrinths.

How This Issue Was Produced

The first drafts of Version 1.0 of this article were typeset on an 80386 DX 33 MHz PC/linux using the typesetting program T_EX and converted into postscript using the program dvips. Photographs and hand drawn figures were digitized using an HP ScanJet IIcx optical scanner on a Macintosh and a 600 MB disk drive and the program DeskScan. The scanner formed a digital image of each of the figures under control of DeskScan, which converted the output to encapsulated postscript files. The postscript files were then transferred to a SUN 3/80 and compressed. The macros in the file epsf.tex and supporting features of the program dvips were then used to include the compressed postscript files into the document. Technical problems with dvips on the system eventually made it necessary edit the T_EX files on the SUN 3/80 at ENS, transfer the files via ftp to an account at MIT, typeset the files via telnet at MIT and transfer the resulting postscript files to ENS and then examine them with ghostscript on the screen or print them out. The final printed copies were then cut and bound with a spiral binder.

Although the original issue was produced at ENS, Version 1.1 was produced at IHES and ENS in Feb.1995. The production technique for the printed version was different and much simpler. The master copy was printed out at ENS. This was necessary because the printers at IHES had only 1 megabyte of memory and a single page of Labyrinths often required more memory than that. Once the master copy was printed out, it was brought over to IHES and photocopied on two sides of the page. This resulted in a slight decrease in the quality of the printed output but the results were acceptable. This also greatly speeded up the production time, since it typically took a half hour to print out a single copy of Labyrinths on a laser printer at ENS, but took less than an hour to make 30 copies at IHES. Another difference in production was that instead of cutting the pages and binding them with a spiral binder, they were simply folded at stapled in the middle. That had been the preferred method from the beginning, but was not feasible for Version 0.1 since no suitable stapler was available at ENS. At IHES, M.Vezilier had a special electrical stapler which was perfectly suited to making pamphlets and that is what was used. A final difference in the production technique is that it was not possible at IHES to print out the covers on yellow bristol paper. A few bristol covers were produced this way at great effort, but for the most part the printers at IHES, unlike those at ENS, could not handle bristol. So the covers were made of white paper. Again, this resulted is much faster production. The entire edition of 30 copies of Version 1.1 of the First Issue of Labyrinths was produced in just a couple of hours.

The master sheets for the bound version of Version 1.2 were prepared at Western Kentucky University and photocopied at Courant Institute in New York. It corrects all known errata in previous versions, either by modification of the text or by explicit mention in the section Notes. The printed and network versions 1.2 have been superseded by the present browsable HTML version 1.21. I would like to acquire a photocopier, a collating machine and an optical scanner. If you can help, please let me know.

Henry Young used the Adobe Acrobat reader to convert the postscript files of the network version to HTML and PDF formats, thereby making them web browsable.

Notes

You might have noticed some red text. Here is what they refer to:

1) The assertion "it is to this that we owe the many clay tablets in our possession" is not correct. This might have been true at Knossos when the palace was destroyed by the Sea Peoples, but clay tablets in the desert dry out very efficiently without being baked.

2) Professor Robert Biggs, of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, has kindly read Version 1.1 and offered valuable criticisms and comments, which I hope to incorporate in the sequel. However, let me mention some specific errors that he pointed out:

a) In Figure 19, I neglected to draw two small horizontal strokes in the leftmost column at the top. These are needed to make the whole line say a-mu-ru, which is Sumerian for "dedicated".

b) In Figure 20, the orientation of the axe head is such that the inscription is upside down.

3) There is no error here, but I have made progress in answering the question, "What happened in the year 313 BC?". Answer: the start of the Seleucid Dynasty.
See: Bickerman, Ancient Chronology, who also comments on the terminology "Age of Alexander". He says it is an incorrect usage, a fact he says was first pointed out by Al-Biruni. Perhaps it is for the same reason that I pointed out, namely that Alexander died before the "Age of Alexander" began, but I won't know for certain until I consult the writings of al-Biruni.

4) The references to "al-Masudium", "ibn Habibum" and "al-Hamdanium" which occurred in Version 1.1 were not correct. I didn't realize that the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, which is written in Latin, had latinized the names of the Arabic authors al-Hamduni, ibn Habib and al-Masudi.

5) Since writing this in 1993-4, I have learned from various people that Palmyrene is a dialect of Aramaic and that in Aramaic the word for "son of" is indeed "bar".

About the author ...

Allan Adler is an independent scholar. He received his PhD in mathematics in 1974 at SUNY Stony Brook and has taught mathematics at MIT and at Brandeis University. He has also been formally affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Tata Institute in Bombay, the Max-Planck-In-stitut für Mathematik in Bonn, Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Bûures-sur-Yvette, Yale University, Brown University and the University of Rhode Island.

His research interests include algebraic geometry, group theory, representation theory, invariant theory and number theory. His other interests include natural languages, musical composition, art, history, history of science and mathematics, physics, chemistry, laboratory experiments and education. In spite of the obstacles he has faced as an independent scholar, he is quite active inhis research and other interests. After a lapse of 10 years, he began publishing again in 1992, with 5 articles appearing in that year. His book Moduli of Abelian Varieties was published by Springer-Verlag in December, 1996.

During the summer of 1993, within a week of Wiles' announcement of a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, the author began a series of lectures to a general mathematical audience on some of the concepts behind the proposed proof. His lecture notes, running about 140 pages, were distributed electronically by the American Mathematical Society. This experience persuaded the author to consider more seriously the new medium of desktop publishing combined with free distribution via electronic networks. The present newsletter is the first experiment aimed at consciously exploring that medium.

LABYRINTHS:A SPORADIC JOURNAL

Written and edited by Allan Adler, Jan-Jun 1994, rev. 1997

If you like this newsletter and wish to contribute to the survival and scholarship of the author, he can be contacted by email at: ara@altdorf.ai.mit.edu

CopyRight 1999