“Better to die than be a coward.” In the hill villages of Nepal live the mighty Gurkhas, heralded as the world’s famous mercenaries. Although the average Gurkha man stands at five-foot and three-inches tall, their determination knows no limits. The prestige associated with the Gurkha name is so immense that thousands of young Nepalese men clamour for a spot in foreign Gurkha-only military units, of which the British army is the largest ’employer’.
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Research
Researcher uses AI to make texts that are thousands of years old readable
The Gilgamesh Epic, the oldest work of world literature, has been brought back to life by LMU researchers in the Electronic Babylonian Literature project. Using their new Fragmentarium tool, they have discovered hundreds of manuscripts, including the most recent tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic which dates from 130 BC – thousands of years after the earliest known version. This shows how highly valued the Epic was, even at a late period. With the public release of the Fragmentarium, anyone can now explore the thousands of cuneiform fragments and explore the ancient Babylonian literature. Read full article here