Dumb Cuneiform

Dumb Cuneiform
http://dumbcuneiform.com

Transliterates your tweets into Old Persian cuneiform, inscribes them on a tablet and mails it to you.

Personally, I want Linear B. Or maybe Lycian.

This is actually a neat gift idea.

Maybe bnielsen and his collection of Tim Quotes should be made aware of this.

Snort. That would fill a room.

Seriously, though, Linear B tablets would be much cooler. Old Persian is a joke—almost nothing's written in it!

" . . . . . nothingʻs written in (Old Persian." (3)

Havenʻt looked into it in years (or is it decades?),
but Iʻm told that the contents of whatʻs been
deciphered from Linear B isnʻt exactly in the
"Canʻt put it down" category. Little more, Iʻm
told, than a "laundry list" type of lit.

>4 rolandperkins:

As opposed to the captivating matter usually on Twitter? :)

". . .captivating matter usually on Twitter?" (5)

Timely reminder, but I havenʻt yet sent or read a tweet,
so I canʻt say.

$20! Do people really buy this?

>3 timspalding:

They say the use Old Persian cuneiform (rather than say Akkadian) because they like the look of it. I confess to wishing they'd gone into a little more detail about that - to me all sorts of cuneiform, except the really early forms that aren't mere collections of wedges yet, look much the same.

One also wonders how they go about it practically, the known corpus of Old Persian is limited as you say and rather deficient in things like pick-up lines. (This assuming they really try and translate - the phrase "translate into cuneiform" makes me wonder if they mayhap merely transcribe English into the script, in which case Old Persian may be the most suitable sort of cuneiform to use.)

>3 timspalding:
A room full of fired clay tablets that future archaeologists can one day have a career about.

>8 AndreasJ:
The website says this: "We take the letters from your message and transliterate by syllable, as nearly as we can, into cuneiform." So yes, they merely transcribe English (or whatever) into the Old Persian syllabary.

Hmm, My relative is a young Architect, currently doing a Masters in Belgium. In Restoration.
BUT.
She is Latvian.

I really do like the idea.
Is it just phonetics?

That's a rather fun way of making a business out of an interest. I'd rather have gingerbread ones, though:
http://www.penn.museum/blog/museum/how-to-make-cuneiform-tablet-cookies/

Awesome.

Or these, on the page I meant to share (but couldn't find at once). They're more of a labour of love and less practical than the Penn Museum ones, but more impressive:

http://mostlydeadlanguages.tumblr.com/post/136361919078/cuneiform-cookies-for-th...

I loved your recipe >14 shikari: but really would like some way to cheat forming "cuneiform on ginger bread"

Hmm. 3D laser printers perhaps?

You could always make a mould from an Old Persian tweet, Guido...

I see the OI museum in Chicago does reproduction cylinder seals. Those might be fun to use on on biscuits.
https://oi.uchicago.edu/visit/museum-shop-suq

I would consider it. It's hilarious!