#4 Other Online Museums, Mesopotamia timelines and article searches

Written communication evolved from the need of early civilizations such as the Sumerians of Ancient Mesopotamia to communicate, organize and document their daily lives. The earliest forms of written communication were probably tokens that were in picture format and attached to sacks of goods. It took two centuries for these pictures to then evolve into a pictographic language as their daily lives became more involved and detailed.

Utilising both google, clusty web search engines and Answer.com to obtain an understanding of terminology and events, I discovered The British Museum - Mesopotamia website. This site produced an excellent insight into the time line of events of the technologies that were developed by the civilizations inhabiting Ancient Mesopotamia. This site and also The Oriental Institute Museum as part of the University of Chicago that includes information about Mesopotamian facts, history, clay tablets images and associated teacher resources.

I also commenced research at Swinburne library's supersearch facility to locate journal articles that maybe helpful. Some titles that I have found useful are so far are -

• 'Chicken scratches' written in clay yield their secrets by Marion Steinmann
• Written in clay by Karen E. Hong
• Information technology, 2500B.C. by P. Morrison
• From ancient Mesopotamia to a modern basement by Ewa Wasilewska

I have been truly amazed with the volume of reference material that I have obtained so far. I am beginning to feel like I have information overload and need to make decisions about which resources will help address my topic the best. The web offers so many choices, I am coming to the realization that I must become more selective and to stay focussed!

[Photo Image http://www.flickr.com/photos/verbeeldingskr8/3638834128/ :

Flickr Creative Commons accessed 14/10/09]