The discovery and decipherment of the trilingual cuneiform inscriptionsBooth, Arthur John
History
The discovery and decipherment of the trilingual cuneiform inscriptions
Booth, Arthur John
Achaemenian inscriptions; Cuneiform inscriptions
Comparing the two inscriptions (B and G), he found they began with
different words, which he now inferred were the names of two different
kings; but he observed that the name in B, which was presumably in the
nominative case, also occurred in the third line of G with a case-ending,
followed by the word for ‘king.’ also with a case-ending. The termination
differed from that already observed in the phrase ‘king of kings,’ and
it marked, no doubt, the genitive singular, as the other denoted the
genitive plural. Referring to his Pehlevi model, he inferred that the
passage indicated the relationship of the two monarchs, and that the king
of the second inscription (G) here declared himself to be the son of the
king of the first inscription (B). This little bit of ingenuity solved
the whole mystery. In the corresponding place in B he found another word
in the genitive case, which was no doubt the name of the father of the
king of that inscription; and he remarked that this name was not followed
by the royal title. He had thus discovered the cuneiform signs that,
with little doubt, expressed the names of three Achaemenian princes,
and he had recognised that these personages stood to each other in the
relation of father, son and grandson, and that the first was probably not
of royal rank. That is to say, from ‘G’ he found that ‘King Z’ was son
of ‘King Y’; and from ‘B’ he found that ‘King Y’ was son of ‘X’ without
the addition of ‘King.’ It only remained to determine who these three
princes were most likely to be: and as the Achaemenian dynasty was a
short one and their names already known from history, the task was not a
difficult one. The two kings at the head of the inscriptions could not
be Cyrus and Cambyses, because their names did not begin with the same
cuneiform letter; they could not be Cyrus and Artaxerxes, because there
is no such discrepancy in the length of the cuneiform words. There thus
only remained Darius and Xerxes for the names occurring first in the two
inscriptions; and this result was confirmed by the absence of the royal
title from the name of the father of the king in one of the inscriptions,
for he recollected that Hystaspes is not called king by the Greek
writers. He assumed, therefore, that the first word in B was Darius (and
it must have been satisfactory to notice that the second letter, _a_, was
precisely the _a_ of Münter) and the other Hystaspes; while the first
word in G he assumed was Xerxes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account