In 1857 the Royal Asiatic Society proposed to test the reliability of the translations put forward by scholars of the Assyrian inscriptions in the following manner: some eight hundred lines of cuneiform writing contained on clay cylinders found by Layard at Ḳalat Sherḳat, the ancient Ashur, were to be independently translated by any scholars who were prepared to accept the proposal; the translations were to be sent under seal to the society’s secretary, and were to be opened together and examined before a commission on a set day. Rawlinson, Fox Talbot, Hincks and Oppert entered the lists, and on May 25th their respective products were opened and compared. The great similarity which they all displayed afforded conclusive proof as to the correctness of the method of decipherment, and demonstrated finally that the investigations carried on, together with the results of those investigations, had not been mere speculative guesses, but were based on sound scientific principles.
Many other scholars deserve our gratitude for the share they took in the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, of whom one may perhaps specially name Westergaarde, Löwenstern, De Saulcy and Longperier, but for an account of the particular achievements of each, the reader must refer to general works on the subject.[43]
CHAPTER IV—CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS
ALL alphabets and all modes of writing have their ultimate origin in pictures or hieroglyphs, and the cuneiform script offers no exception to this universal rule. When the early pictorial symbols are used to indicate objects and ideas other than the particular object of which the symbol is a representation the accuracy or inaccuracy of the picture becomes a matter of small importance, and an inevitable tendency to sketch the picture in the most speedy manner possible ends finally in the evolution of a purely cursive script. In Mesopotamia this course of development—or deterioration—was hastened by the nature of the material used in later times for all ordinary writing purposes, i.e. the all-abundant clay of the valley, it being impossible to draw the lines and curves necessary for the production of pictures on so plastic a substance as clay. The shape assumed by the signs forming the characters was due to the same cause, the point at which the stylus first comes in contact with the soft clay being unavoidably thicker than the remainder of the stroke which automatically tapers off into the form of a wedge. But so forcible is the influence of habit and so strong the imitative tendency, that we find the cuneiform characters which owed their wedge-shaped formation entirely and solely to the adoption of clay as a writing material, faithfully and slavishly copied on the colossal stone bulls, stelæ and wall-reliefs of later Assyrian kings.
The early decipherers of cuneiform had no specific knowledge of its pictographic origin, for all the inscriptions at that time discovered showed the same stereotyped and cursive script, but since their day a vast number of archaic inscriptions have been brought to light which prove conclusively that cuneiform as such was no invention of either Semites or Sumerians, but was simply the last stage in the process of degeneration to which the early pictures of the pre-Semitic Sumerians were subject. In the following illustrations (Figs. [1] and [2]) we have a number of characters taken from actual inscriptions and arranged in order of evolution so to speak,[44] the sign in the left-hand column containing the most archaic form of the sign as yet discovered, the signs in the right-hand column showing the gradual transition to cursive cuneiform, while the last sign in the column is the ordinary late Assyrian ideograph. Thus in “A” we have the crude picture of a man recumbent, and one can follow the course of its development or deterioration from the various forms it has assumed on monuments and bricks arranged in order of sequence. Given the ordinary cuneiform sign for “man” by itself, it would be quite impossible to conjecture that it originated in the picture of a man at all. Below (“B”) we have the old Sumerian hieroglyph for “king,” consisting in a man lying down, surmounted by either a crown or an umbrella as part of the insignia of royalty. In “C” we have the picture of a man’s head in recumbent posture, the lips being represented by two slanting lines, while the series of characters in the centre illustrates the various forms the sign has assumed on the bricks and monuments, and the arrangement shows the process whereby the original hieroglyph gradually discarded all trace of its pictorial origin, and became a cursive stereotyped sign the principal value of which is “mouth.” Below we have another rude picture of a man’s head, but on this occasion he wears a beard, which would suggest a full-grown man; hence the meaning of the Assyrian ideograph is “strength,” “be strong,” or “protection.” In figure “E” there is a representation of a potted plant: this sign, instead of becoming simpler as it makes each progressive step towards cuneiform, becomes paradoxically more complex, until it finally subsides and assumes its normal cursive form, the principal value for which is “cypress-tree.” Below (“F”) two plants are seen, growing likewise in a pot: the progress is again obvious, the meanings of the ideogram being “plant” and “garment”; this latter meaning is probably attached to the sign through the use of flax as a material for clothing. “G” appears to be a tree growing by water; the late cuneiform sign has numerous values, but none of them suggest any immediate connection with the obvious signification of the picture-character from which it was developed. “H” gives us a picture of a reed, the late cuneiform character being the ideogram for “kanu” which means a “reed.”
Fig. 1.—From Harper’s Old Testament and Semitic Studies, Vol. II, pp. 241 ff.—By permission.