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
Lassen finishes thus: ‘Xerxes, rex magnus: ex voluntate Auramazdis
(palatium) domitor Darius rex constituit. Is meus pater. Memet tuere,
Auramazdes, heic felicitate: tum hoc ibi palatium, tum hoc patris Darii
regis palatium, excelse Auramazdes, tuere heic felicitate’—a passage
rendered by Menant: ‘Xerxès, le grand roi, déclare: Par la volonté
d’Ormuzd, Darius mon père a construit cette demeure. Qu’Ormuzd me protège
avec les autres Dieux, qu’Ormuzd avec les autres Dieux protègent mon
œuvre et l’œuvre de mon père le roi Darius.’ The I inscription, from
which Lassen derived so much assistance, fared badly at his hands when he
attempted to translate its concluding lines. Even in the list of proper
names he committed what must now appear to be the stupendous blunder of
mistaking three common words for the names of three provinces of the
Empire. The words so honoured are: ‘ushkahyâ,’ ‘darayahyâ,’ ‘parauvaiy,’
which figure as ‘Uscangha’ (the Uxii), ‘Drangha’ (the Drangii) and
‘Parutah’ (the Aparyten).[468]
His transliteration of the others is naturally frequently defective, but
nevertheless he identified twenty correctly. The four he failed in are
Susa, Arabia, Egypt and Ionia. It would have been difficult for him to
recognise either Susa or Egypt, even if his transliteration had been more
perfect. The first is represented in the cuneiform by three signs—_u_
_v_ _j_—and reads ‘uvaja,’ which certainly does not suggest Susa. But
Lassen turned the _uv_ into _q_; as the last letter in his opinion was
_n_ (𐎩, 28) he evolved _q’n_, from whence Chaona. The word for Egypt, as
correctly transliterated ‘M’udray,’ would perhaps have been even more
embarrassing than his own ‘Gudraha,’ in which he agreed with Burnouf
in recognising ‘Gordyene.’ The word he read ‘Arbela’ was correctly
translated ‘Arabia’ by Burnouf; and a somewhat too pedantic learning
reconciled him to ‘Huns,’ which Burnouf had rightly rejected.[469]
CHAPTER IV
BEER AND JACQUET TO RAWLINSON—A.D. 1838-1846
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