The discovery and decipherment of the trilingual cuneiform inscriptions

by Arthur John Booth

CHAPTER VI
DECIPHERMENT OF THE THIRD OR BABYLONIAN COLUMN—HINCKS AND RAWLINSON—A.D. 1846-1851

The task of deciphering the Third or Babylonian Column led to far more important results, and cannot be so briefly summarised. The earliest inscriptions found in Babylonia were observed to consist of two well-marked styles of writing the cuneiform character. One of these styles was to be seen on the Michaux Stone, published in the Collection of Millin. The other occurs on the numerous bricks that were picked up upon the ancient site of Babylon, and on a number of cylinders. But the most remarkable example of this style was found in the long inscription obtained by Sir Harford Jones and published by the East India Company. The first style is by far the simplest, and it is known as the Cursive or New Babylonian; the other is so elaborate that Grotefend called it the ‘Zierschrift’;[709] but it is generally described as the Lapidary or Old Babylonian. All the early scholars were struck by the close similarity of the writing in the third column at Persepolis to the first or simplest form of Babylonian. Münter went a step farther, and pointed out that the similarity extended to the Old Babylonian of the brick inscriptions. In the collection of inscriptions made by Mr. Rich, he thought he discerned three well-marked varieties of writing; but he was able to announce that Grotefend, after a careful comparison, considered that they were all closely related to one another and to the third Persepolitan.[710] It was soon recognised that there are in fact only two varieties of Babylonian, and what Mr. Rich supposed to be a third is due only to the vagaries of the scribe, or, as Rawlinson explained, it ‘arises from the distortion of oblique elongation.’[711] It was long, however, before the identification of the two systems was satisfactorily established. In the fifth volume of the ‘Fundgruben des Orients’ Grotefend demonstrated the essential identity of the third Persepolitan and the simple Babylonian, and in the following volume he illustrated the similarity of the two systems of Babylonian.[712] In 1840 he succeeded in identifying a few lapidary characters with their equivalents in New Babylonian. In his contribution to the subject he endeavoured to render the names of Hystaspes and Darius into the two Babylonian forms.[713] In Hystaspes he seems to have succeeded in only one character—the lapidary sign for ‘as’—but his spelling out of Darius was correct, both in the cursive and lapidary forms.[714] He was able also to recognise that certain inscriptions on vases written in the cursive style reproduced in part the same text as those on the bricks written in the lapidary style. With a little farther study he would have been able, from the material collected in this Table, to draw up a short list of equivalent signs in the two systems. As it was, he left this demonstration to be accomplished by Dr. Hincks in a much more successful manner than it was in his power to attempt. He had observed indeed that certain words in the East India House inscription corresponded to those found on the bricks, and he has collected them together in line 19 of his Table, and placed them word for word below the brick inscription for purposes of comparison.[715] But both are in the same lapidary character, and their juxtaposition served only to show that the same words, and possibly portions of the same sentence, were to be found in each. Grotefend, as we shall soon see, had not the smallest idea of their meaning. It was the good fortune of Dr. Hincks to observe that portions of the text of the East India House inscription are reproduced in a fragmentary inscription written in cursive characters and published by Ker Porter.[716] This, as he says, was ‘a most important discovery, as the equivalence of certain cursive and lapidary characters which bore scarcely any resemblance to one another was thus demonstrated, as well as the equivalence to each other of different lapidary characters which are constantly transcribed by one and the same cursive character.’ By this means he succeeded in drawing up a Table of seventy-six cursive characters, selected from the third Persepolitan column, and placing opposite each its equivalent lapidary sign taken from the East India House inscription.[717]

Hitherto the cuneiform inscriptions known to Europe had been practically limited to the Persepolitan and Babylonian styles of writing. A few examples of different varieties were, however, beginning to crowd upon the bewildered student. Almost the first examples of the Assyrian style were collected by Mr. Rich in 1820, during his visit to Nineveh, and these were subsequently acquired by the British Museum.[718] In 1827, Schulz found about forty inscriptions at Van, written in a very similar character, and these were published in the ‘Journal Asiatique’ of 1840.[719] A prism with a long inscription was discovered at Nineveh in 1830, but it does not seem to have become accessible till purchased by Colonel Taylor in 1846.[720] In 1840, Mr. Layard copied an inscription at Malamir that presented another striking variety. But the first period of great discoveries in Assyria had now approached. In 1843, M. Botta, the French Consul at Mosul, began his excavations in the mound at Khorsabad, and he soon uncovered the remains of a palace. He found the doors adorned with monumental bulls, and the walls decorated with bas-reliefs and inscriptions. He described the result in a series of letters to M. Mohl, which appeared in the ‘Journal Asiatique’ between May 1843 and June 1845. M. Flandin was hastily commissioned to take sketches; but fortunately the task of copying the inscriptions was left entirely to Botta. He faithfully transcribed upwards of two hundred, many of them being, however, exact or slightly varied reproductions of each other. A large collection of sculptures found its way to the Louvre, and the drawings and inscriptions made their appearance in 1849 in the great work ‘Monument de Ninive.’ Like many similar productions in France, it was executed upon such a splendid scale as to place it practically beyond the reach of ordinary students. The inscriptions were, however, afterwards published separately; and M. Botta contributed a valuable essay on the newly found ‘Ecriture Assyrienne’ (1848).[721]

Meanwhile Mr. Layard was rapidly accumulating treasures upon even a greater scale for the British Museum. He began to excavate at Nimrud—the ancient Caleh—in November 1845, and speedily brought to light the remains of three buildings, known as the North-West, Central and South-West Palaces. In the following year he extended his labours to Kouyunjik, a mound on the site of Nineveh, where he unearthed a palace of unusual size, which he found had been erected by the son of the Khorsabad king. He was rewarded by the discovery of the vast treasures now preserved in the British Museum—colossal bulls and lions, winged human figures, and many other symbolical objects; long rows of bas-reliefs depicting battles, sieges and hunting scenes, and large numbers of inscriptions. One of the most important of these was found in the autumn of 1846 on a black obelisk in the central palace of Nimrud. It consists of two hundred and ten lines, and enjoys the distinction of being the first purely Assyrian inscription that was ever deciphered.[722] Of scarcely less importance was the discovery of an inscription upon the pavement where the names and titles of five kings were clearly recorded. Their names could not indeed be read as yet, but sufficient was already known from a comparison with the Persian inscriptions to indicate the genealogical relationship of the unknown sovereign. The Assyrian signs for ‘king,’ ‘son of’ and a few others had been made out, which left no doubt as to the meaning of the document. It began with the father of the founder of the North-West Palace, and ended with the grandson of the builder of the Central Palace. On his return to England, in 1847, Layard wrote an account of ‘Nineveh and its Remains,’ but the work did not appear till 1849. It was followed in the same year by the ‘Monuments of Nineveh,’ which contained drawings of the bas-reliefs and copies of the inscriptions.

Two great collections of Assyrian inscriptions were now in the hands of scholars, who found themselves face to face with the difficult problems they suggested. In England the task was divided between Hincks and Rawlinson; but Mr. Norris, Dr. Birch, and Mr. Layard gave valuable assistance in the publication of documents. Mr. Norris was farther engaged in the study of the Susian texts. In France the work was taken up by Botta, Löwenstern and De Saulcy. M. Oppert does not seem to have turned his attention to this branch of the subject till 1857, when for the first time France was worthily represented. Germany was silent, except for a few contributions made by Grotefend in his declining years that added little to the general progress.

Nothing could at first be more bewildering than the immense number of signs. Grotefend counted only a hundred and thirty different characters in the third Persepolitan column. Mr. Fisher, in 1807, found that the East India House inscription contained two hundred and eighty-seven;[723] and Grotefend, in 1837, estimated that the whole of the Babylonian inscriptions known to him contained about three hundred different signs.[724] But Botta encountered no less than six hundred and forty-two at Khorsabad alone.[725] The unskilled eye will be disposed to agree with Löwenstern that at first sight the Ninevite character presented no analogy with the Persepolitan, or even with the characters on the Babylonian bricks. In his ‘Essai de Déchiffrement’ (1845) he was, however, the first to point out that a large number of them do really correspond to the third Persepolitan; and he based his attempted interpretation partly upon the analogy he had discovered.[726] In his first Essay, of 1846, Hincks also stated his belief that ‘the third Persepolitan agrees in character with the Babylonian and with the Assyrian writing in Schulz’s inscriptions.’[727] Löwenstern afterwards admitted that he would scarcely have recognised the similarity from Schulz’s plates; but it became clearly apparent in the more perfect drawing of Texier.[728] Indeed he was eventually so much struck by the resemblance that he hesitated to classify the Persepolitan with the Babylonian in preference to the Assyrian; in fact, he ultimately persuaded himself that it was nearer the Assyrian. Meanwhile Botta had begun the minute study of the Assyrian character to which later investigators owe more than they are always willing to acknowledge.[729] Those whose fortune it is to occupy the higher pinnacles of knowledge are only too prone to despise the humbler artificers who constructed the scaffolding that enabled them to achieve the ascent. Botta arranged the signs with great care into fifteen classes, according to the number of wedges they contain. The first class included all those with one wedge only; and so on up to the fifteenth class, where we find signs composed of fifteen wedges and upwards: though none appear to exceed eighteen. The result of his classification was to persuade him that the graphic system of Assyria was substantially the same as that found at Persepolis and Babylon. He accepted Rich and Westergaard as the most faithful copyists of the former, and he compared ninety-six of their signs with those at Khorsabad. He found that seventy-two were so similar that their identity could not fail to be recognised at first sight. Fourteen others exhibit a greater difference, but their identity is capable of demonstration. There are therefore eighty-six signs out of ninety-six concerning which no doubt can exist. He thought the difference was not so great as between Gothic and Latin characters. With respect to the writing at Van, he counted a hundred and twelve to a hundred and fifteen characters, and he found that ninety-eight or a hundred were reproduced identically at Khorsabad.[730] When he began to write upon this subject he had only just received a copy of the East India House inscription, and it was some time before he could hazard an opinion as to the relationship of the New Assyrian to the Old Babylonian.[731] The result of a first study of the two hundred and eighty-seven signs in the East India House inscription was the identification of a hundred and seven of the signs with the Assyrian, and a more careful investigation ultimately raised the number to one hundred and seventy-nine.[732] The remaining one hundred and eight have not, he says, any proper equivalent at Khorsabad. He was inclined to attribute a good deal of the diversity to the material and the instrument used. Where, for example, the stone was brittle, as at Van, the engraver showed a disinclination to make the wedges cross, and the chisel would naturally produce a different effect from the impress of a wedge upon soft clay. Much also was, no doubt, due to the individuality of the scribes, who seemed to think they might increase or diminish the number of the wedges according to fancy. Others were simple errors on the part of the original scribe or his copyist, and some may have been intended for abbreviations. He did not believe it possible to establish any fundamental distinctions between any of these styles. Thus he thought the Taylor prism combined the differences peculiar to Nineveh and Babylon so equally that it would be impossible to decide to which class it really belongs. He concluded, therefore, that, notwithstanding considerable apparent variety, there was substantial identity; and that one and the same mode of writing prevailed in Assyria and Babylon, at Van and Persepolis. Indeed he went so far as to suppose that whoever could read a Khorsabad inscription would be able also to read all the others. It is true he could not himself read or pronounce a single word with any degree of certainty;[733] and Rawlinson declared that his special studies afforded him no facility. He could, he says, read the Babylonian of the third column, but he has not ‘yet succeeded in identifying a single name in the tablets of Van or Khorsabad.’[734]

At first indeed Rawlinson was much more impressed by the diversity than by the similarity of the signs, and he described them as ‘constituting varieties of alphabetical formation.’ He divided Babylonian into the writing of the third Persepolitan and that of the bricks and cylinders; the latter he considered was the primitive form ‘which must have embodied the vernacular dialect of Shinar, when the earth was of one language and one speech.’ Assyrian he also divided into two classes, Assyrian proper and Medo-Assyrian or Vannic; but he also distinguished Assyrian proper into two subdivisions, representing the lapidary and the running hand—a specimen of the latter being the Taylor prism. The Elymaean inscriptions he placed in a class apart, ‘as entitled to an independent rank.’ He pointed out that even the third Persepolitan writing is not identical with the cursive Babylonian, and that the variation is sufficient to constitute a serious impediment to study. The writing on the Assyrian cylinders is ‘quite distinct from any variety of character which occurs on similar relics at Babylon’; and he found ‘characters at Van that never occur at Khorsabad and vice versa.’ He cannot, therefore, agree with Botta that they all ‘belong to one single alphabetical system,’ and that the differences are merely ‘varieties of hand.’[735] Farther study, however, led him to alter his opinion, and in 1850 he admits that ‘there is no doubt but that the alphabets of Assyria, of Armenia, of Babylonia, of Susiana and of Elymais are, so far as essentials are concerned, one and the same. There are peculiarities of form, a limitation of usage—but unquestionably the alphabets are “au fond” identical.’ Mr. Layard had also arrived at the same conclusion. In his opinion, the varieties appear to be mere ‘caligraphical distinctions.’[736]

The same important discovery was soon afterwards extended, as we have already related, to include the writing in the second or Susian column of the Persepolitan inscriptions. In 1846, Hincks called attention to the similarity that existed between them. Both the Babylonian and Assyrian modes of writing, he says, ‘agree in principle with the second Persepolitan,’ and he farther observed that where the characters are the same, they have generally the same, or nearly the same, value in all three.[737] It is curious that Botta was quite unable to trace the existence of this resemblance. Writing of the three columns, he says: ‘The elements of the groups are in each quite different, and even when the form agrees the sound is quite different’; and this opinion was shared by Westergaard, who, as we have said, maintained that the various species of cuneiform writing ‘differed from one another in the shape of nearly every letter or group.’[738]

A good deal has been said from the time of Botta downwards as to the similarity of the various styles. There is no doubt that they are sufficiently formidable to require a special training in reading each kind,[739] and the Assyrians themselves found it necessary to make transcriptions from the Babylonian in order to make the writing intelligible. There was a greater diversity in the writing of Babylonian than of Assyrian, in consequence of there being no standard official type in the former as there was in the Assyrian,[740] and consequently a copyist sometimes altogether mistook a sign, and occasionally he was actually unable even to divine its meaning; indeed, so great was the diversity in the manner of writing that the Assyrian scribes made use of Tables of Variants, and in one of these no less than twenty different ways of writing the same sign have been found. On the whole, most students will be inclined to agree with Mr. Budge, who dwells more on the differences than the similarity of the styles.[741]