Dr. Michelle FullwoodJan 17, 2023

I've been collecting interesting examples of information organisation in history, focusing on non-Western civilisations. I came across this example of an ancient Mesopotamian spreadsheet! It records wages paid to temple workers in 1295 BCE.

#History #AncientHistory #Cuneiform #Mesopotamia #CognitiveHistory

Claire BoardmanJan 18, 2023
Show threadDr. Michelle Fullwood
P.S. If this interested you, maybe you can help me out by pointing me to people researching this topic. I'm especially interested in how different languages/writing systems affect how people make catalogues/taxonomies/indexes.
Jan 17, 2023 at 2:41pmWeb
Show threadElisa CoghlanJan 17, 2023
@michelleful I’d love to learn about what you discover in this research!
Show threadray johnsJan 17, 2023
@michelleful I'm also interested in this, I'm happy to share anything I may find in my researches 🥰
Show threadDr. Michelle FullwoodJan 17, 2023
@spacyoddity yay, please do!
Show threadCyber YukiJan 17, 2023
@michelleful Tagging #histodon
Show threadDave GriffithsJan 17, 2023
@michelleful I suspect you already know of Carrie Brezine finding double entry book keeping in Inca knotted khipu records...
Show threadDr. Michelle FullwoodJan 17, 2023
@nebogeo I feel like I've heard a bit about quipu decipherment (wasn't there some Harvard undergrad who managed something a few years ago?) but haven't looked into it in great detail. Thank you for letting me know, I will check out Dr. Brezine's work!
Show threadanlomedadJan 17, 2023

@michelleful
One way to find people is to follow hashtags. I don't know if it works in mobile apps. But setting the web browser view of a Mastodon to "advanced view" gives you a multi-column layout where you can add/pin more columns, for example for hashtags followed.

Once you pinned 1 followed # you can add more # to the pinned column and tell the system to collect all of them, and also to exclude others.
Eg., you'd follow #language but exclude #school so as to not get any posts that discuss language as a school subject.

Show thread⏚ Antoine Chambert-LoirJan 17, 2023
@michelleful In France, sociologists such as @olivier_martin or historian of mathematics like Grégory Chambon (who worked on sumerian math) might have interesting pointers.
Show threaddamkoJan 18, 2023
@michelleful the only meaningful way I have to contribute to your research is to suggest to make an account in vkontact (Russian facebook) and try to reach someone from Russia.
Show threadRussell NechesJan 18, 2023
@michelleful The Tripitaka Koreana! It is probably the single greatest act of knowledge preservation in human history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripitaka_Koreana
Tripitaka Koreana - Wikipedia

Show threadClaire BoardmanJan 18, 2023

@michelleful

Fascinating area. I've been thinking about initiatives to decolonize archive/collections records (metadata). Specifically the insertion of contemporary indigenous terminology i.e. literal translations w/out broader cultural context and meaning (present or past). I can see how it becomes a very complex and difficult task, very quickly but I feel (data & info science background) much of this is due to trying to fit - physically and conceptually - into unsympathetic DB structures.

Show threadhramrachFeb 19, 2023
@michelleful
Indexing by CJK ideographs (eg. in dictionaries) is also rather interesting topic - there is some concept or 'radicals' - minimal building blocks, and the characters are in some way sorted by the used radicals.
Show threadcelebdaeFeb 19, 2023
@michelleful so this has not a lot a lot to do with your research but in comparistic linguistics there's a ton of analysis of various special fields and there nomenclature. E.g. Everything around Steel is classified completely different in EN vs DE. Or look at chemical combinations between DE EN (and FR if I remember correctly). Now include Japanese or Chinese technical languages and u have an entire field to crawl through. (I'm coming at this topic from a translators point of view.)