CHAPTER II.
THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.
EARLY LITERATURE—HISTORIC TABLETS—THE INSCRIPTIONS OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR—THE FALL OF BABYLON—CYRUS, THE ACHÆMENIAN—BEHISTUN INSCRIPTIONS—DARIUS AT PERSEPOLIS—INSCRIPTIONS OF XERXES—ARTAXERXES—A LATER PERSIAN TABLET—RÉSUMÉ.
The early literature of Persia takes root in ancient soil, and the foundation of her world of letters must be sought for amidst the graven stones of forgotten tribes. The Persian heritage was not only the land of ancient Babylonia, but also the Chaldean and Semitic lore, which lay in the vaults of her kings, or lived upon the marble walls of her ruined palaces.
The story of a great civilization, and the poetry, as well as the prose of human history, were recorded upon the rocks or buried beneath the soil of Mesopotamia. It was even written in gold and alabaster, and placed in the corner-stones of temples that have lain beneath the tread of armies for three thousand years. When the stone is rolled away from the sepulchre of a buried literature, and the records of forgotten ages come with resurrection power into the living present, the heart of man must listen to the voice of these historic witnesses.
One of the greatest triumphs of modern science is the solution of the cuneiform inscriptions of antiquity. To the herculean labors of Grotofend, Bournouf, Lassen, Rawlinson, Layard, Oppert, Rassam, Sayce, Talbot, and others, the world owes a debt it can never pay. Their solution of these obscure alphabets, and the language, grammar and meaning of these old inscriptions rank with the grandest discoveries of modern science. They have not hesitated to devote their lives to the drudgery of cuneiform study, a score of years if necessary, being given to the solution of a single inscription. Without their long, unceasing labor many of the most valuable records of the past must have remained a sealed book. In vain would the spade of the explorer have exhumed the imperial libraries of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar if no light could be thrown upon their strange inscriptions. In vain would the historic tablets of Karnak, or the cylinders of Babylon be brought before the bar of modern criticism, if no key could be found to their problems. It has been necessary to bring to this formidable task an understanding of the Chaldaic, and also of the old Accadian tongue. But even this did not suffice, and it would have been impossible to do more than to decipher a few proper names on the walls of Persian palaces without the aid of other ancient languages. As Lassen remarks: “It seems indeed providential that these inscriptions should be rescued from the dust of centuries at the very time when the discovery of Zend and Sanskṛit had enabled Europeans to successfully grapple with their difficulties, for at any other period in the world’s history they could only have been a strange combination of wedges[[26]] or arrow heads, even in the eyes of Oriental scholars.” It is difficult to appreciate the long and tedious processes by which these men were compelled to shape their own intellectual tools, and test their own laborious methods; but even to those who have not time to follow their intricate path of research, the result of their labors is indeed marvelous. The accuracy of their work has been sufficiently verified. At the suggestion of the Royal Asiatic Society, four translations of several hundred lines of the inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I. were made independently by Sir Henry Rawlinson, Mr. Fox Talbot, Dr. Hincks and Dr. Oppert, and submitted under seal to the secretary of that society. When opened and compared, it was found that they exhibited a remarkable resemblance to each other, even in the transliteration of proper names, and the rendering of individual passages. This triumphant result abundantly proved the fact that their method was a sound one, and that they were working on a solid basis.
Absolute certainty, of course, is unattainable at present, but the decipherment of these inscriptions has reached a degree of accuracy sufficient for all practical purposes. Scholars, perhaps, will always dispute about the exact meaning of certain words or phrases, as they do in reference to the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, but in either case it is seldom that any important point turns upon the particular shade of meaning. Still, it is evident that the Orientalists who have undertaken to restore the early chronology of Assyria and Babylonia have a difficult task in hand.
One of the points most surely settled by the deciphering of these inscriptions is, that so far as certain peoples are concerned the world of letters extends much farther back than has generally been supposed.
HISTORIC TABLETS.
There are philological tablets which are apparently designed, in some cases, to give the manner in which the names of Semitic kings were pronounced or written by their Accadian subjects.
An instance of this is found in the name of Sargon of Accad, the ancient hero of the Semitic population of Chaldea, who founded the first Semitic empire in the country and established a great library in his capital city, Accad, near Sippara. The seal of his librarian, which is of beautiful workmanship, is now in Paris, and has been published by M. de Clercq,[[27]] while a copy of his annals, together with those of his son Naram-Sin, may be found in Western Asia Inscriptions.[[28]]