Campus Currents

Translation Illuminates Details
of Ancient Life

“For Nindara
The noble king
His king
Gudea
Governor
Of Lagash
His temple of Girsu
He built it for him”

So reads the inscription on a clay cone dedicating the temple of Nindara in ancient Lagash, translated from the ancient language Sumerian by Matthew Vincent, a biblical languages and theology major.

Vincent chose for his senior project to translate and put into historical context the dedicatory cone, which had only been loosely translated before, and seven Sumerian tablets that had never been translated before.

The tablets, which are housed in the wwc’s archaeology lab collection, are from the Ur III Dynasty of ancient Mesopotamia, which dates from 2100 B.C. to approximately 2000 B.C. The clay tablets were most likely inscribed using a small wooden or metal stylus that created wedge-like impressions, and then baked. They are economic in nature, typically describing a transaction of some kind. This may seem mundane at first, says Vincent. “It is amazing how these everyday descriptions of ancient life began to come to life for me,” he says.

“As I began comparing our collection to many others, I began mapping out connections between people. You can see who ran what business and what kind of things were going on in the ancient world,” says Vincent.

To translate the ancient inscriptions, Vincent turned to resources such as a Sumerian dictionary, Sumerian Lexicon, and a book of cuneiform signs and their values, Manuel D’Epigraphie Akkadienne. He also worked with Richard Litke, wwc professor emeritus, from whom he learned Sumerian and Akkadian.

A particular “wow” moment during the translation process came when he photographed the tablets, and zoomed in on a photograph on his computer. He discovered an entire layer of writing that had been invisible to the naked eye. It turned out to be a seal, rolled over both sides of the tablet and over the standard writing.

“As we discover and process each one of those finds, we begin to understand more about the ancient world,” says Vincent. “As we begin to understand more about the ancient world, the understanding we have of the Bible increases and we begin to find those little ‘jewels’ that turn a story into a religious experience that brings us closer to God.”

Vincent’s knowledge of Akkadian and Sumerian aided him in his work. He is also well versed in several other languages, including Spanish, French, and the ancient languages of Hebrew and Greek (Attic and Koine). He recently began studying Syriac as well.

This summer Vincent, a June graduate, spent time in Jordan working at the archaeological dig site in Amman, which is a joint venture sponsored by wwc, other Adventist colleges and universities, and professional organizations. Vincent will seek to have his translations published professionally, and is pursuing both graduate school and work in ministry. “I am leaving things in God’s hands and exploring both paths,” he says. W

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