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
On the other hand, the Akkadians now make their first appearance
in modern history as ‘Hekdi,’ ‘which may be connected with the Armenian
“Haik.”’ Hazael of Damascus is still concealed as ‘Khazakan of Atesh’ and
‘Jehu the son of Omri’ appears as ‘Yahua the son of Hubiri,’ ‘a prince,’
says the translator, ‘of whose native country I am ignorant.’ He called
attention to the name of Yehuda in a Khorsabad inscription in connection
with that of Hamath; but he hesitated to identify it with Judah. Indeed
at this period he could not bring himself to believe that the son of
the Khorsabad king was Sennacherib and his grandson Esarhaddon, as
Hincks ventured to assert.[825] The signs for Sargon he transliterated
‘Arko-tsin,’ and those for Sennacherib, ‘Bel — — Adonim-sha’; but
Esarhaddon came out almost correct as ‘Assar-Adan.’ He concludes his
paper by an analysis of the inscriptions found at Khorsabad, containing
the annals of ‘Arko-tsin.’
It was not till the following year, and till after Rawlinson’s return
to Persia, that the publication of the third column of the Behistun
inscription was completed. It fills the fourteenth volume of the
‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ and the greater part of it was
laid on the table before May 1851.[826] A portion of the expense was
defrayed by a Government grant, made at the suggestion of Lord John
Russell; and the volume consists of seventeen large plates containing
the cuneiform text with transliteration and a Latin translation. Then
comes an ‘Indiscriminate List of Babylonian and Assyrian Characters,’
with their phonetic powers, and also such ideographic values as
had been ascertained. The list includes two hundred and forty-six
principal signs, many of which are followed by others varying in form;
and generally representing the different methods of writing found at
Persepolis, Babylon and Nineveh. An analysis of the text, extending over
a hundred pages, follows, but it has not been carried farther than to
the end of the first column. The ‘Memoir on the Babylonian and Assyrian
Inscriptions’ is even more incomplete. It covers only sixteen pages, and
breaks off in the middle of a sentence, before the analysis of the second
sign was concluded. No explanation is given of this abrupt termination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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