The Progress of Ethnology / An Account of Recent Archaeological, Philological and Geographical Researches in Various Parts of the Globe, Tending to Elucidate the Physical History of Man

by John Russell Bartlett

It is unnecessary to note in detail the difficulties and great labor attending the decyphering of the Behistun tablets, on which Major Rawlinson was occupied from time to time during a space of ten years. His discoveries were announced in London, in a memoir read before the Royal Asiatic Society in 1839, but were not published in extenso until 1846.

Briefly to sum up the results of his labors, it will suffice to state that they present "a correct grammatical translation of nearly four hundred lines of cuneiform writing, a memorial of the time of Darius Hystaspes, the greater part of which is in so perfect a state as to afford ample and certain grounds for a minute orthographical and etymological analysis, and the purport of which to the historian, must be of fully equal interest with the peculiarities of the language to the philologist." In a few cases it may be found necessary to alter or modify some of the significations assigned; but there is no doubt but that the general meaning of every paragraph is accurately determined, and that the learned Orientalist has thus been enabled "to exhibit a correct historical outline, possessing the weight of royal and contemporaneous recital, of many great events which preceded the rise and marked the career of one of the most celebrated of the early sovereigns of Persia."

Such is the history of this great discovery, which has placed the name of Major Rawlinson among the most distinguished Oriental scholars of the age. He will rank among the laborers in cuneiform writing, where Champollion does among the decypherers of Egyptian hieroglyphics; for though, like Champollion, he did not make the first discoveries in his branch of Palæography, he is certainly entitled to the honor of reducing it to a system, by ascertaining the true powers of a large portion of the alphabet, and by elucidating its grammatical peculiarities, so that future investigators will find little difficulty in translating any inscription in the particular class of characters in question.

The cuneiform (wedge-shaped) or arrow-headed character is a system of writing peculiar to the countries between the Euphrates and the Persian frontier on the East. Various combinations of a figure shaped like a wedge, together with one produced by the union of two wedges, constitute the system of writing employed by the ancient Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and the Achæmenian kings of Persia. The character seems to have been as extensively employed in this portion of the world, as the Roman letters now are in Europe. Particular arrangements or combinations of these characters apparently belonged to different nations, speaking different languages. When and where this system of writing originated is not known. Professor Westergaard[76] thinks that "Babylon was its cradle, whence it spread in two branches, eastward to Susiana, and northward to the Assyrian empire, from whence it passed into Media, and lastly into ancient Persia, where it was much improved and brought to its greatest perfection."

Major Rawlinson makes of the arrow-headed writing three great classes or divisions, the Babylonian, Median and Persian. The first of these he thinks is unquestionably the oldest. "It is found upon the bricks excavated from the foundations of all the buildings in Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Chaldea, that possess the highest and most authentic claims to antiquity;" and he thinks it "not extravagant therefore to assign its invention to the primitive race which settled in the plain of Shinar."[77] In the recent excavations made by M. Botta and Mr. Layard, on or near the site of ancient Nineveh, numerous inscriptions in this form of the arrow-head character were found. It also occurs in detached inscriptions from the Mediterranean to the Persian mountains.

A comparison of the various inscriptions in the Babylonian class of writing has led Major Rawlinson to believe that it embraces five distinct varieties, which he calls the Primitive Babylonian, the Achæmenian Babylonian, the Medo-Assyrian, the Assyrian, and the Elymæan.[78] The peculiarities of these several varieties, with the countries in which they are found, are pointed out in the second chapter of our author's learned Memoir on cuneiform writing. The Median and Persian classes are peculiar to the trilingual tablets of Persia, and are better known than the first class or Babylonian.

Mr. Westergaard[79] divides the cuneiform writing into five classes: the Assyrian; the Old Babylonian; and the three kinds on the trilingual tablets of Persia, which embrace the Median and Persian varieties, and the one called by Rawlinson the Achæmenian Babylonian.

The history we have already given of the progress made in decyphering these characters applies exclusively to one of the varieties on the tablets of Persia. The inscriptions on these monuments are almost invariably repeated in three sets of characters, and doubtless in three different languages. The characters of what appears in each case to be the primary or original inscription, of which the others are translations, are of the simplest construction, and consequently were the first to attract the attention of decypherers, and to yield to their efforts. The language in which they are written has been found to exhibit close affinities both to the Sanscrit and to the Zend, and is now termed by philologists the Old Persian. The system of writing is alphabetic, that is to say, each character represents a single articulate sound; whereas that of the other two species is at least in a great measure syllabic, which renders the task of decyphering them much more difficult.

For our knowledge of the second variety of characters on the Persian trilingual tablets, we are indebted to the labors and sagacity of Professor Westergaard.[80] These characters had remained entirely undecyphered until the first kind had been completely made out. It was evident that the inscriptions in the second kind of character were but a translation of those in the first; and with this supposition, this learned Orientalist began the task of decyphering, by identifying the proper names Darius, Hystaspes, Cyrus, Xerxes, Persians, Ionians, &c., which frequently occur in the inscriptions decyphered by Major Rawlinson. Having obtained these, he next analyzed each and ascertained the phonetic values of the several characters of which they are composed. By this means, he was enabled to construct an alphabet. He next examined the introductory words and the titles of the sovereigns, and finally the entire inscriptions, all of which he has most satisfactorily made out, and with them has reconstructed the language in which they are written. In his learned and elaborate article detailing the process of this discovery, Professor Westergaard gives a systematic classification of the characters, one hundred in number, of which seventy-four are syllabic, twenty-four alphabetic, and two signs of division between words. The character of the language, which for convenience sake he terms Median, he does not pretend to decide, though he considers that it belongs to the Scythian rather than to the Japhetic class of languages; in which opinion Major Rawlinson coincides. The Oriental Journal alluded to in the second note to p. 90, contains several learned papers by Professors Westergaard and Lassen, on the arrow-headed inscriptions.

In the third sort of Persepolitan characters, termed the Achæmenian Babylonian, some advances have been made by Major Rawlinson. The contents of the other portions of these tablets being known, he pursued the course adopted by Professor Westergaard, namely that of identifying the groups of characters corresponding with the proper names in the other inscriptions. He has thus been enabled to ascertain the phonetic values of a large number of characters which must in time lead to a knowledge of the rest of the alphabet. A beginning in this direction was also made by Professor Grotefend, who in his Memoirs of 1837 and 1840, singles out and places in juxtaposition the names of Cyrus, Hystaspes, Darius and Xerxes, in the first and third species of Persepolitan writing. There is every reason to hope that the labors of the three accomplished Oriental scholars, Rawlinson, Lassen, and Westergaard, which have been so far crowned with success, will add to their fame by making out the characters and language of this species of writing also. A high degree of interest is attached to it, not only on account of the information it embodies, but in regard to the nation to which it is assignable.