I was really struck by the number of female specialists mentioned who are working on this project while reading this article. (Part of the
Persepolis Fortification Archive Project)
From the University of Chicago website/news:
Technology brings new insights to ancient language
October 14, 2009
New technologies and academic collaborations are helping scholars at the University of Chicago analyze hundreds of ancient documents in Aramaic, one of the Middle East’s oldest continuously spoken and written languages.
Members of the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California are helping the University’s Oriental Institute make very high-quality electronic images of nearly 700 Aramaic administrative documents. The Aramaic texts were incised in the surfaces of clay tablets with styluses or inked on the tablets with brushes or pens. Some tablets have both incised and inked texts.
Discovered in Iran, these tablets form one of the largest groups of ancient Aramaic records ever found. They are part of the Persepolis Fortification Archive, an immense group of administrative documents written and compiled about 500 B.C. at Persepolis, one of the capitals of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Archaeologists from the Oriental Institute discovered the archive in 1933, and the Iranian government has loaned it to the Oriental Institute since 1936 for preservation, study, analysis and publication.
The Persepolis texts have started to provide scholars with new knowledge about Imperial Aramaic, the dialect used for international communication and record-keeping in many parts of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires, including parts of the administration at the imperial court of Persepolis. These texts have even greater value because they are so closely connected with documents written in other ancient languages by the same administration at Persepolis.
“We don’t have many archives of this size. A lot of what’s in these texts is entirely fresh, but this also changes what we already knew,” said Annalisa Azzoni, an assistant professor at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University. Azzoni is a specialist on ancient Aramaic and is now working with the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project at the Oriental Institute. “There are words I know were used in later dialects, for example, but I didn’t know they were used at this time or this place, Persia in 500 B.C. For an Aramaicist, this is quite an important discovery.”
Clearer images delivered more quickly
Scholars from the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California helped the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project build and install an advanced electronic imaging laboratory at the Oriental Institute. Together, the two projects are making high-quality images of the Aramaic texts and the seal impressions associated with those texts. They are distributing the new images to the international research community through the Internet.
Inked and incised texts pose different problems that call for different imaging solutions. Making high-resolution scans under polarized and filtered light reveals the ink without interference from stains and glare, and sometimes shows faded characters that cannot be seen in ordinary daylight. Using another advanced imaging technique, called Polynomial Texture Mapping, researchers are able to see surface variations under variable lighting, revealing the marks of styluses and even the traces of pens in places where the ink itself has disappeared.
Distributing the results online will give worldwide communities of philologists and epigraphers images that are almost as good as the original objects―and in some cases actually clearer than the originals―to study everything from vocabulary and grammar to the handwriting habits of individual ancient scribes.
Researcher Marilyn Lundberg and her colleagues from the West Semitic Research Project built two Polynomial Texture Mapping devices from scratch at the Oriental Institute. They trained Persepolis Fortification Archive Project workers in using them, and also in using filtered light with a camera equipped with a high-resolution scanning device. Now a stream of raw images is uploaded every day to a dedicated server maintained by Humanities Research Computing at Chicago, then uploaded for post-processing at the University of Southern California. Fully processed imagery is available on InscriptiFact, the online application of the West Semitic Research Project, and in the Online Cultural Heritage Research Environment, the online application of the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project.
Seeing the whole picture
The Polynomial Texture Mapping apparatus looks a bit like a small astronomical observatory, with a cylindrical based topped by a hemispherical dome. The camera takes a set of 32 pictures of each side of the tablet, with each shot lit with a different combination of 32 lights set in the dome. After post-processing, the PTM software application knits these images to allow a viewer sitting at a computer to manipulate the apparent direction, angle and intensity of the light on the object, and to introduce various effects to help with visualization of the surface.
“This means that the scholar isn’t completely dependent on the photographer for what he sees anymore,” said Bruce Zuckerman, Director of the West Semitic Research Project and its online presence, InscriptiFact. “The scholar can pull up an image on the screen and relight an object exactly as he wants to see it. He can look at different parts of the image with different lighting, to cast light and shadow across even the faintest, shallowest marks of a stylus or pen on the surface, and across every detail of a seal impression.”
“This is a wonderful way to look at seal impressions,” said Elspeth Dusinberre, another Persepolis Fortification Project collaborator. Dusinberre, an associate professor of classics at the University of Colorado, is studying the imagery and the use of seals impressed on the Aramaic tablets. “Some of the impressions are faint, or incomplete, on curved surfaces or damaged surfaces. Sometimes Aramaic text is written across them. You need to be able to move the light around to highlight every detail, to see the whole picture.”
The Persepolis Fortification Archive also includes about 10,000 to 12,000 other tablets and fragments with cuneiform texts in Elamite―a few hundred of them with short secondary texts in Aramaic. There are also about 4,000 to 5,000 others with impressions of seals, but no texts, and there are a few unique documents in other languages and scripts, including Greek, Old Persian and Phrygian.
“That’s what makes this group of Aramaic texts so extraordinary,” Stolper said. “From one segment of the Persepolis Fortification Archive, the Elamite texts, we know a lot about conditions around Persepolis at about 500 B.C. When we can add a second stream of information, the Aramaic texts, we’ll be able to see things in a whole new light. They add a new dimension of the ancient reality.”
Impacts are far-reaching
The collaboration between the Oriental Institute at Chicago and the West Semitic Research Project at Southern California began with support from a substantial grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2007. To date, the teams have made high-quality images of almost all the monolingual Aramaic Fortification tablets. The next phase of the work, supported by a second Mellon grant that runs through 2010, will make images of the short Aramaic notes written on cuneiform tablets, seal impressions on uninscribed tablets and previously unrecorded Elamite cuneiform texts.
The tablets have been studied since they came to Chicago in 1936, and many of them have been sent back to Iran. Oriental Institute scholar Richard T. Hallock published about 2,100 of the Elamite texts in 1969, and Margaret Cool Root and Persepolis Fortification Archive Project collaborator Mark Garrison are completing a three-volume publication of the impressions made on those documents by about 1,500 distinct seals.
These publications have had far-reaching results. “They have transformed every aspect of modern study of the languages, history, society, institutions, art and religion of the Achaemenid Persian Empire,” Stolper said. “No serious treatment of the empire that Cyrus and Darius built and that Alexander destroyed can ignore the perspectives of the Fortification Archive.”
“If that is the effect of a sample of one component of the archive,” added Garrison, “imagine what will happen when we can have larger samples and other components, and not just the written record, but the imagery, the impressions made by thousands of different seals that administrators and travelers―the men and women who figure in the texts―employed.”
By 2010, the collaborating teams expect to have high-quality images of 5,000 to 6,000 Persepolis tablets and fragments, and to supplement these with conventional digital images of another 7,000 to 8,000 tablets and fragments. The images will be distributed online as they are processed, along with cataloging and editorial information.
“Thanks to electronic media, we don’t have to cut the parts of the archive up and distribute the pieces among academic specialties,” said Stolper. “We can combine the work of specialists in a way that lets us see the archive as it really was, in its original complexity, as one big thing with many distinct parts.”
I'm having issues downloading photos that Allen Becker emailed to me. Here are two from the SWCC blog. Top photo is Nicole Niemi v. Anthony Parker in R3. Bottom photo is Joanna Huang v. Ryan Thomas on Board 2 (front of table) and I believe Alena Huang v. Steve Etzel same table but toward the wall (Alena had black in the final round).
Chessbase presents photographs from Round 9 and the closing party featuring, of course, gorgeous chess femmes and some rather - well - let's just say some chess guys.
Photo caption: The ladies applaud the announcement that there will be a repeat in 2010. Really? Was an announcement made at the awards ceremony about the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis hosting the 2010 USWCC? This was obviously a different event because the ladies have different outfits on from what they wore in the party party party photos.
You can see Betsy Dynako's photographs of the event at the 2009 U.S. Women's Chess Championship at the official website.
Updated 3:16 p.m. October 17, 2009: It is confirmed from the USCF website (Chess Life Online) that the 2010 U.S. Women's Chess Championship will, indeed, be played at the same venue as in 2009. Hooray!
I imagine everyone who was involved with the US Women's Chess Championship, from the players, to the organizers, to the commentators, to the cleaning crew at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis were exhausted by the time the championship proceedings finally wound down and everyone (except the cleaning crew) went home (party party party...photo from the closing party by Betsy Dynako who was also at the party as she was taking all of these photographs....Irina and Iryna in hot party dresses...party party party... And you thought chess was just for nerds? Oh Goddess!)
It took a few days (and perhaps some Alka-Seltzer and bloody marys to ease those aching heads, LOL!) - but the final Round 9 Championship Chronicle is up and running at the official site for the USWCC. I've been waiting for this with baited breath, Chris Bird!
Well, actually, that's not fair - as I see CB dated the Final Chronicle October 14th, and it was posted at 21:55 hours yesterday October 15th (let's see - 21:55 minus 12:00 = 9:55 p.m.? Past my bedtime :)) However, I KNOW I visited http://www.uschesschamps.com/ at least a couple of times earlier today and I sure didn't see it - and I even hit refresh several times, just in case. Still didn't see it. Hmmm...
What I really want to know is which games won the brilliancy prizes sponsored by 9 Queens? DRAT! I don't see a word about that. Inquiring minds want to know. Perhaps the judges are having a hard time narrowing down their picks?
By the way, I saw at Chessvibes.com today that Zatonskih had a performance rating of 2817 in this USWCC. That PR speaks for itself, most eloquently.
On a different note, please scroll down and take a look at the photos on page 7 by Suzy Gorman - ohmygoddess! The players are gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. I found each and every one of the ladies stunningly beautiful and I love the set-up of them romping with large chess pieces. My favorite photo is of Baginskaite, with Zatonskih's photo a close second. The images aren't jpgs so I can't figure out how to reproduce them here - I'll have to ask Mr. Don if he can do something. In the meantime, enjoy the photo of Irina and Iryna, above, just two of the lovely ladies who played in the 2009 USWCC.
The artist M. C. Escher was influenced by your geometric inventions. What was the story there?
In my second year as a graduate student at Cambridge, I attended the International Congress of Mathematicians in Amsterdam. I remember seeing one of the lecturers there I knew quite well, and he had this catalog. On the front of it was the Escher picture Day and Night, the one with birds going in opposite directions. The scenery is nighttime on one side and daytime on the other. I remember being intrigued by this, and I asked him where he got it. He said, “Oh, well, there’s an exhibition you might be interested in of some artist called Escher.” So I went and was very taken by these very weird and wonderful things that I’d never seen anything like. I decided to try and draw some impossible scenes myself and came up with this thing that’s referred to as a tri-bar. It’s a triangle that looks like a three-dimensional object, but actually it’s impossible for it to be three-dimensional. I showed it to my father and he worked out some impossible buildings and things. Then we published an article in the British Journal of Psychology on this stuff and acknowledged Escher.
Escher saw the article and was inspired by it?
He used two things from the article. One was the tri-bar, used in his lithograph called Waterfall. Another was the impossible staircase, which my father had worked on and designed. Escher used it in Ascending and Descending, with monks going round and round the stairs. I met Escher once, and I gave him some tiles that will make a repeating pattern, but not until you’ve got 12 of them fitted together. He did this, and then he wrote to me and asked me how it was done—what was it based on? So I showed him a kind of bird shape that did this, and he incorporated it into what I believe is the last picture he ever produced, called Ghosts.
A WGM Salome Melia update!
WGM Melia stole the hearts of many a chessplayer in Montreal when she arrived to play in the 89th Montreal Open Chess Championship, and won the title of Female Champion of Montreal for her 4.0/5 performance!
Melia was part of the Georgian women's team Samaia Tbilisi (RtgAvg:2465) that participated in the 14th European Club Cup for Women 2009. Complete information about the performance of the Georgian women's team is available at chess-results.com.
Here are Melia's results -- 1 win, 2 draws, 1 loss:
Melia Salome IM 2432 GEO Rp:2379
Rd. SNo Name Rtg FED Rp Pts. Res. Bo.
1 35 WGM Stojanovic Andjelija 2323 SRB 2282 3,0 w 1 4
2 4 IM Kovalevskaya Ekaterina 2436 RUS 2514 4,5 w ½ 4
4 26 IM Paehtz Elisabeth 2482 GER 2452 3,5 s ½ 4
6 49 WGM Benderac Ana 2276 SRB 2384 3,5 s 0 4
The Georgian women's team won the Bronze medal for their performance (photo above from official website. Melia is second player from the right). The uber-powerful teams Spartak Vidnoe took gold and Cercle d'Echecs Monte Carlo took silver. Cercle d'Echecs Monte Carlo won the European Women's Club Cup in 2007 and 2008.
Mommy to the rescue! These images were sent to me earlier today in an email by a friend who knows I have a great fondness for squirrels.
The young black dog (looks like a lab or lab mix) is crouched in a play position, ready to pounce upon the "prey" it has discovered at the base of the tree - a baby squirrel! Mommy squirrel rushes to the rescue - you can see the panicked look on her face!
She jumps on the dog and uses those sharp nut-cracking teeth to full advantage, attacking the dog's neck area.
Baby squirrel escapes and rushes toward the tree as mommy squirrel continues her desperate attack!
The last photo shows mommy squirrel protectively hovering over the baby squirrel as she moves baby back up the tree trunk to the nest.
I found these photos online at several different places, I believe (although not 100% sure), they first surfaced in February, 2009. I honestly do not know if they are real or if, somehow, a trained dog and trained squirrels were used. I have a suspicion, slight, only because in that final photo I cannot image a dog just sitting there watching the squirrels escape up the tree. Wouldn't the dog be jumping up on its hind legs, trying to catch the squirrels?
On the other hand, after being bested by this mommy squirrel, maybe doggy thought better of that plan!
I am behind the times in reporting on this event, in which several women's teams composed of the brightest star female chessplayers from around the world competed. I will post more this weekend.
For the past two years the club sponsored by Monte Carlo won the gold medal, and with the line-up of players the 2009 version of Monte Carlo fronted, I expect many spectators, myself included, assumed they would once again take home the gold.
That was not to be -- Monte Carlo took home silver this year. But in case the link embedded in the image doesn't work (I've had the devil of a time trying to get it right) check out this annotated video of current Women's World Chess Champion GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, who played for Monte Carlo, win against IM Inna Gaponenko.
Would Zatonskih go for a win in the final round to finish with 8.5/9? Who would win the battle for second place - Krush or the "veteran" player Camilla Baginskaite? Could Melekhina, who lost her R8 game, possibly pull out a win and - in an unlikely but mathematically possible scenario - tie for second place, forcing a 3-way play-off? (Photo from official website by Betsy Dynako, R8)
What would happen among the other players who didn't have a shot at places one through four, but could still move up (or down) in the standings and gain (or lose) prize money?
And what about the additional prizes that were up for grabs: 9 Queens sponsored $600 of best games prizes ($300/$200/$100) and Goddesschess once again sponsored a $500 Fighting Chess Award, the winner selected by GM Susan Polgar. Who might win those?
There was much to fight for -- paraphrasing the words of Camilla Baginskaite -- one must play out the position for self-respect.
Since last week I've been trying to watch the games and listen to the live commentary at the office - OHMYGODDESS! Not very satisfactory - particularly today with so much on the line! But I did manage to listen to most of the commentary, even though I wasn't able to follow along on the games very well. I suppose not much can be done over the course of such a long tournament to avoid games being played during working hours - but it sure would make it easier on fans who work 9 - 5.
I nearly had a heart attack when Melekhina, who lost her game yesterday, rebounded today to win against Tsagaan and move into a mathematical tie for second place with Krush and Baginskaite (both with 5.5 at the time Melekhina won her game). And then - Krush lost her game to Abrahamyan! Krush stayed at 5.5! So Melekhina and Krush were tied for second place at 5.5 each, along with Baginskaite, who was still playing her game against never-say-resign Foisor!
It took a LOOOONNNNGGGGG time for that game to reach its denouement, but in the end, Baginskaite prevailed, and secured 6.5 for herself -- clear second place. No play-offs! (Photo from official website by Betsy Dynako, R7)
Final standings (full final cross-table):
2009 U.S. Women's Championship Standings
# Name USCF FIDE Score
1 Anna Zatonskih 2492 2462 8½
2 Camilla Baginskaite 2356 2317 6½
3 Alisa Melekhina 2253 2220 5½
4 Irina Krush 2490 2458 5½
5 Tatev Abrahamyan 2342 2275 4
6 Sabina Foisor 2379 2320 3½
7 Rusudan Goletiani 2437 2391 3½
8 Iryna Zenyuk 2271 2285 3
9 Battsetseg Tsagaan 2265 2258 2½
10 Yun Fan 2134 1935 2½
By now, the final results/standings have been published at many websites, blogs and even in print newspapers (I hope), and I hope that much more coverage, reporting, commentary and in-print analysis of this great championship and its games will be published over the coming days.
Congratulations to Anna Zatonskih and Camilla Baginskaite for their fantastic tournaments and securing spots for the 2010 Women's World Chess Championshp. Congratulations and kudos to all of the players for their incredibly-displayed fighting spirit this year. You really inspired me, personally, to continue with my chess "training" - when, where and how are problematical but I will work on those :)
A particular thank you once again this year to GM Susan Polgar for agreeing to select the winner of the 2009 Goddesschess Fighting Chess Award.
So much was right this year with the presentation online of the 2009 USWCC that I don't want to be a downer - but --
There was a LONG period of time earlier today at the office, during the most crucial round, where the live commentary audio was lost at http://www.uschesschamps.com/ and all I could do was try to visit the remaining games still going on (in between telephone calls, visitors, and trying to push out work), to see if there would be a three-way tie for second place, forcing a play-off! If live commentary is once again offered next year (and I sincerely hope it will be because overall I greatly enjoyed it and thought it added much to my overall experience as an internet audience member), I hope some of these technical glitches will be smoothed out. I love the live commentary - it makes the games come so much more alive, particularly for someone like me, who is not very chess literate. I want to know WHY a move isn't so good, or WHY a move is particularly good, and WGM Jen Shahade, GM-elect Ben Finegold and Macauley Peterson from ICC Chess FM (connected to the Internet Chess Club) did a pretty good job of doing that.
Not perfect - but pretty good, and I'm sure once some of the technical things are smoothed out, they will be a really great team! The analysis - as far as I could understand it - was great, spot on. But technically, there were fade-ins and fade-outs from the microphone. During some of the live post-game interviews, and even during some of the analysis, voices faded away and the sound was so faint I couldn't make it out - very frustrating. That was especially evident when soft-spoken Camilla Baginskaite was interviewed (several times over the past several days), but it happened several times during various interviews and during the live commentary throughout the Championship.
Regarding publication of additional sponsorship and prizes offered for the players in the Championship, while I heard a great deal about the 9 Queens best game prizes and the Goddesschess Fighting Chess Award during the live commentary, particularly in the later rounds - I saw nothing in print at the http://www.uschesschamps.com/ website about these additional prizes. And I was paying attention - I was looking for mention of them in writing, particularly since I don't believe the live commentary is archived anywhere accessible to the general public and who knows how many thousands of followers of the Championship don't listen to it? Yes, our prizes are relatively small (but they mean a great deal to us of our hard-earned dollars), and -- these are dollars going into the pockets of the winners of these prizes and I hope the players knew, along with the audience, what was on the line as far as additional monies available. Perhaps the players, and the public, were aware of these prizes. But perhaps not.
Not everyone listens to the live commentary. I would like to see this area of coverage improved. Speaking bluntly, Goddesschess contributes special prize money because we want to encourage women chess players on both national and local levels, and one of the best ways to do that is to increase their chances for earning $$$, but as a small organization with a limited donor base, we'd also like to receive some in-print publicity (other than at our own sites) for our efforts.
Monroi - as far as I could tell, you did an excellent overall job of presenting the games live and getting the PGN up very quickly after the real time the games were finished. Well done!
