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The World's First Dictionary: A Mesopotamian Legacy

The earliest known dictionary in history comes from Mesopotamia.

The artifact before you is the oldest bilingual dictionary, consisting of 24 cuneiform tablets.

It features word lists in Sumerian alongside their Akkadian equivalents, providing a linguistic bridge between these two ancient languages.

These tablets are part of the renowned Ebla archive, a treasure trove of Mesopotamian knowledge.

By 2500 B.C., Sumerian scribes had developed a writing system with around 800 cuneiform signs, allowing them to document myths, fables, essays, hymns, proverbs, epic poetry, laws, medical texts, and even astronomical observations.

Today, this remarkable dictionary is housed in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Here are the lighthouses of Europe.  The map is even better than it might seem at first glance: the colors are the real colors, the patterns are the real patterns, and the size of the dots is the distance at which each light is visible.

Interactive map: https://geodienst.github.io/lighthousemap/

by @emollick

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