“Ancient Sumerian Biologists: Did the Sumerians know about the genetic code?”

by Joop Van der Miel (Archaeological Unit, University of Amsterdam) with  thanks for assistance to Mary Carmen Valencia  (Dept of Archaeology, Universidad Iberoamericana) Magda Poborsky (Biomedical faculty, UNAM, Mexico City)

I acquired a Mesopotamian pot several years ago in an auction, the original owner a German collector who had found the pot on an excavation of Tell ‘Uqair about eighty miles south of Baghdad, back in the 1920s.

The pot contains 5 clay tablets, immaculately preserved, each inscribed with clearly visible cuneiform.  In the Mesopotamian region it is quite common to find remains of pots in the ruins of a settlement.  The place had been sacked and burned to the ground.  This had the effect of firing the clay tablets, rendering indelible any writing.

Most Sumerian writing, characteristically wedge-shaped markings, is sun-baked onto the clay tablets.  After thousands of years, the inscriptions on these sun-baked tablets become un-readable. But when a village perishes in flames it often provides archaeologists with a valuable treasure: written records of the civilisation.

The Sumerian script was deciphered several decades ago. Thousands of tablets have been translated, providing a rich understanding of the myths, religious life, accounting practices and culture of the ancient civilisation, believed to be the oldest on Earth.

But there are still thousands of clay tablets which are as yet undiscovered, untranslated, or simply too damaged; indecipherable.

The fifth  Tell ‘Uqair tablet is of particular interest because it uses twenty symbols or ‘logograms’, whose meanings are known. Yet this tablet uses the logograms in an entirely novel context.

Sumerian language, like some modern languages such as Hungarian (but unlike ancient Mayan), is ‘agglutinative’.  Words are built up by stringing forms together. Therefore, a basic word, symbolised by a collection of markings known as a ‘logogram’, can be made more complex by the serial addition of different vowels and consonants. These quite literally build up as additional markings on the original logogram.

Together, the additional markings and the original ‘root’ logogram, now convey a new meaning. Sometimes, two different logograms are be combined to create a composite logogram, with a new meaning.

All five of the Tell‘Uqair tablets appear to deal with matters of medicine and the treatment of various ailments.

The fifth tablet contains twenty logograms with ‘supplementary signs’ to help clarify any ‘polyphony’.

Polyphony is when there is more than one meaning for a given word. It was used in some ancient languages as in modern, ancient Mayan writing included.  For example, the English word ‘fleet’ which can mean ‘speedy’ but also it can mean a collection of ‘naval vessels’.

In Sumerian writing, polyphony is widely used. Supplementary signs appear as modifications to certain logograms where more than one meaning was possible.  These modifications help place the logogram into the correct context. For example the logogram for the word ‘naga’, when modified in a certain manner could signify ‘raven’, instead of ‘soap’.

The supplementary signs on the twenty logograms inscribed on the fifth  tablet from Tell‘Uqair are totally unknown, different to any which has already been observed on this set of logograms.

The meaning of the logograms must be something entirely different.
The question is: what?

Decipherment of the fifth Tell ‘Uqair tablet
The logograms are grouped into seven groups.  The numbers of logograms in each group are one of six, two of three and four of two.  Alongside each logogram on the tablet is a brief description, translated into phrases such as:

entukumše igi – ‘As long as the first’.

On the reverse side of the tablet the entire list of logograms appears again. This time they are not grouped but simply ordered according to a single property.

For example: ‘ul eš’ meaning ‘love of water’ or perhaps more precisely; solubility.

There are twenty of these strangely modified logograms and their groupings.

Thanks to the collaboration of Dr. Valencia and Dr. Poborsky, I was able to make the following leap of insight:

Proteins are made from twenty amino acids grouped as follows:
•    one group of six amino acids (known by modern biologists as ‘aliphatic’)
•    two groups of three amino acids (‘basic’ and ‘aromatic’)
•    four groups of two amino acids (‘acidic’, ‘hydroxlyic’, ‘amidic’, ‘sulphur-containing’)

The exact same number and sizes of groups as that of the twenty mysterious logograms on the fifth tablet from Tell‘Uqair

Could it be that the unusually modified logograms actually represent twenty amino acids?

The descriptions appended to each logogram, seem to compare each of the logograms to the others in the group, comparing properties such as their length, and alkalinity.  Finally, the entire list as it appears on the reverse of the clay tablet, can be used to place the logograms in order of inherent solubility.

This is analogous to comparing the molecular lengths, alkalinity and solubility of the carbon-based amino acids. Using this rudimentary guide to the relative properties of each amino acid it was possible to work out which of these specially modified logograms represents which amino acid.