The discovery and decipherment of the trilingual cuneiform inscriptions

by Arthur John Booth

The demonstration of the similarity of the cuneiform writing of Babylon and Assyria was followed by the more important discovery that the languages expressed by both were the same as that of the third Persepolitan column. The Persian, now deciphered and translated, was thus found to afford a key, not only to the language of the third column, but also to the large collection of inscriptions from Nineveh. Hincks, in a Postscript of June 1846, to which reference will be frequently made, announces that he believes the third Persepolitan ‘agrees, to a great extent at least, in language with the Babylonian inscriptions.’[742] In 1848, Botta endeavoured to establish beyond the possibility of doubt that the Assyrian of Khorsabad likewise agreed with the language of Babylon and Persepolis. He showed that the same grammatical inflexions, the same personal pronouns, the same particles, and very many words agreed in all three languages. With regard to the inscriptions at Van, Botta was at first in doubt, but farther study led him to believe that here the inflexions were not the same.[743] This was subsequently fully recognised by Hincks[744] and by most other scholars. It did not, however, prevent De Saulcy from hazarding a translation of one of them on the supposition that it was written in Semitic.[745] In 1850, Rawlinson agreed that both the Babylonian and Assyrian languages are to be included in a common category; but he added that ‘they can hardly be called identical, inasmuch as each dialect affects the employment of specific verbal roots and certain particular nouns and adjectives.’[746] They are, in fact, distinguished by certain dialectical differences which have been compared in degree to that existing between the dialects of the West and North of England; but other authorities think the differences scarcely amount to provincialism.[747]

The suggestion that the newly-discovered language would turn out to be Semitic was made at an early period of the inquiry. It had not, however, occurred to Grotefend, who described it, in 1837, as Parsi, and in 1840 he had apparently returned to his original opinion that it was Pehlevi, and he expressly rejected a suggestion of Lepsius that the writing might be compared to Phoenician.[748] Before the decipherment of the cuneiform every conceivable hypothesis had been started as to the probable affinities of the Ancient Assyrian language.[749] At length, in 1845, Löwenstern recollected that the Jewish Scriptures place Assur in the same ethnological division as Heber, and he concluded that Assyrian must therefore have been a Semitic speech.[750] In June 1846, Hincks also announced that ‘both Assyrian and Babylonian appear to have much in common with the Semitic languages’;[751] and in the following January he stated emphatically that they ‘exhibit a much greater similarity to the other Semitic languages than I had at first supposed.’ In consequence of this similarity, he now for the first time sets the fashion, afterwards generally adopted, of classifying the signs according to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and he endeavoured for a brief time to assimilate the vowel system to the Semitic method.[752] In a tract written in 1847 Löwenstern dwelt with increasing force upon the Semitic affinities of the language; and he considered that Rawlinson is fundamentally wrong in applying the laws of an Aryan speech ‘to a writing and a language that are Semitic.’[753] It cannot be said that he contributed much towards the proof of his assertion. He was entirely mistaken in the fundamental principle of his comparison, the supposed similarity of the vowel systems of the two languages; but he pointed out the analogy of a few words, such as ‘rabu,’ ‘great,’ to its Hebrew equivalent, and this was the only word which, according to Menant, was then correctly read.[754] In the December previous, Hincks pointed out that the personal pronoun in Assyrian reads ‘a-na-ku,’ but he left it to the learning of his readers to recognise the identity of this word with the Hebrew. This was afterwards done by Botta,[755] who, however, continued on the whole to be doubtful of the Semitic affinities of Assyrian.[756]

In 1849, De Saulcy contributed two memoirs on cuneiform, which seem to have added considerably to the proof.[757] In the first he is said to have shown that the two languages agreed in the feminine termination t and in the relative pronoun ‘sha’; and in the second he identified the particles for ‘and’ and ‘with.’[758] In the following year, Hincks added other forms and words that could be best explained by reference to the Hebrew;[759] and Rawlinson definitely settled the question by an elaborate comparison of its grammatical forms and vocabulary with those of other Semitic languages.[760] Since that time its affinity to the Semitic family has been fully accepted. Rawlinson showed that Babylonian is found in a more primitive state than any other of the Semitic dialects of Asia open to our research. It is held to be the oldest representative of that family yet known, ‘the Ethiopic ranking next in point of antiquity.’[761]

Hincks declared that it bears the same relationship to Semitic as Sanscrit to Aryan, an opinion shared by Mr. Sayce and Professor Haupt. It properly belongs to the northern group, which includes Hebrew, Phoenician, Syriac and Chaldee; but there is some disagreement as to the degree of relationship.[762] Mr. King describes it as ‘closely akin’ to the northern group, while Mr. Pinches considers the differences are often very great, especially in the verbs.[763] Mr. Boscawen finds striking affinities in grammar to Arabic, one of the southern group.[764] It was some time, however, before these opinions prevailed. M. Luzzato, in 1850, still maintained that Assyrian was an Indo-European language;[765] and Holtzmann that it was a Persian dialect mingled with Semitic elements.[766] Botta long remained in doubt, and Hitzig did not hesitate to deny that it is Semitic.[767] So late as 1858 Ewald, the German Hebraist, entirely refused to accept the grammatical forms of Assyrian as Semitic.[768] M. Renan wrote to the same effect in 1859, and he even retained his doubts in the fourth edition of his ‘Langues Sémitiques,’ published in 1863.[769] The recent discoveries were indeed peculiarly unacceptable to M. Renan. Not long before, he had laid down that monotheism was the special ‘note’ of the Semitic races, and he was naturally extremely disconcerted by the unexpected apparition in the Louvre of a profusion of Assyrian gods, according as they were dug up by M. Botta. In 1865 we are still assured that Assyrian, ‘though of the Semitic type, is only distantly connected with known forms of that language.’[770]

It is much easier to determine the grammatical affinity of a language than to read it, and the place of Babylonian in the family of languages was definitely fixed before much progress was made in the work of translation. From the time that Grotefend’s attention was first directed to cuneiform research, he endeavoured to include the second and third columns, no less than the first, within his sphere of inquiry. But he achieved very little success. In his Essay published by Heeren (1824) we find that he had already singled out the groups in the third column that corresponded to Cyrus, Hystaspes, Darius and Xerxes. The Babylonian, unlike the Persian, has no sign to mark the division of the words, and the difficulty attending their separation was at first very great. The process was facilitated when it was recognised that each line begins and ends with a word: that is to say, a word is never divided and carried over from one line to another. In 1837, Grotefend successfully divided eight lines of the Elvend inscription, with only a slight mistake. He also divided the B inscription of Darius nearly correctly: the exception being that at the end of his first line he seems to treat three words as one.[771] Nor was the difficulty confined to the separation of the words only. Some of the signs are so long that they were at first mistaken for two or more letters. Thus the sign for ar in the word for Xerxes was treated by Grotefend as th and r;[772] and Löwenstern divided the sign for gi into r and s, which continued for a long time to be a source of trouble.

In 1840 Grotefend gives a Table to show the transliteration of his four royal names. He reads Cyrus ‘Kho · re · s’ for ‘Ku · ra · as’; Hystaspes ‘Wi · scht · as · p’ for ‘Us · ta · as · pa’; Darius ‘Da · r · ha · a · wesch’ for ‘Da · ri · ya · a · vus’; Xerxes ‘Kh · sch · ah · th · r · sch’ for ‘Hi · si’ar · si.’[773]

We have here sixteen different signs with their values attached; and of these only three (as, da, a) are absolutely correct; though the others give the consonantal values. These values appeared substantially in his tract of 1837, with the addition of ‘wo-hu’ for the signs that read ‘rabu.’[774] Hincks, writing in December 1846, makes the very liberal admission that perhaps Grotefend knew the values of ten cursive characters correctly and of ten others approximately.[775]

It will be seen from the transliteration that he recognised some of the signs as syllabic and some as alphabetical. He also knew there was a single sign for ‘son,’ which, he points out, occurred as a in Darius; and he had found three of the equivalent signs for ‘king.’ It is not improbable that if he had persevered in analysing a larger number of proper names, he might eventually have reached other solid results. Unfortunately, these were not readily accessible. The I inscription, that yielded so much assistance to Burnouf and Lassen, had no Babylonian equivalent; and Westergaard had not yet copied the one at Naksh-i-Rustam. Failing the only true method, he had recourse to another that once more carried him far away to another ‘constellation of Moro.’

There was much speculation as to what could be the signification of a certain inscription found on cylinder seals and ‘holy’ vases, and reproduced with amplification on the bricks collected by Mr. Rich at Babylon. Hager had long ago thrown out the useful suggestion that the brick inscriptions most probably recorded the name of the maker or the builder; but this opinion did not ultimately find favour. It was contended that the inscriptions on the seals and ‘holy’ vases must have a religious import, and were no doubt used as talismans, in accordance with Oriental custom; and nothing could be more natural than that the same mystical formulae should be impressed upon the bricks, in order to banish the evil demons from the precincts of the building. Grotefend accordingly looked about for guidance, and at length found something to suit his purpose in the Zend-Avesta. He collected a number of brick inscriptions together, and placed under them such portions of the inscriptions on seals and ‘holy’ vases as he found to correspond. They are not, however, exactly alike, for in the latter two or more words are omitted from the middle of the sentence. The first legend contains sixteen words and, according to Grotefend, it runs thus: ‘(1) Ich erhebe (2) demüthigst (3) den grossen (4) König (5) Mithras (6) immerdar (7) mit Grösse (8) und mit Stärke (9) an diesem (10) öffentlichen Orte (11) Ja (12) ich erhebe (13) diesen (14) grossen (15) König (16) Mithras.’ The legend taken from the brick of Nebuchadnezzar (line 13) differs slightly from this. The name of the king or god is not the same (words 5 and 16); and the two words ‘öffentlichen Orte,’ ‘ja,’ are also different. At the end, a seventeenth word is added, signifying, as is supposed, ‘sei gnädig.’ Such was the last attempt at translation before the breaking of the new light. The meaning of this inscription is now known to be: ‘(words 1, 2, 3) Nabu-kudur-usur, (4) King (5) of Babylon, (6-10) Restorer of Bit-Saggatu and of Bit-Zida, (11) eldest son (12, 13, 14) of Nabu-pal-usur, (15) King (16) of Babylon, (17) I.’[776]