READING HALLTHE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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ANCIENT HISTORY The adventure of the cuneiform writing deciphermentTHE EARLY DISCOVERERSGROTEFEND
IT were difficult, if not impossible, to define the qualities of mind
which must inhere in the decipherer of a forgotten language. He is not
necessarily a great scholar, though great scholars have been successful
decipherers. He may know but little of the languages that are cognate with the
one whose secrets he is trying to unravel. He may indeed know nothing of them,
as has several times been the case. But the patience, the persistence, the
power of combination, the divine gift of insight, the historical sense, the
feeling for archaeological indications, these must be present, and all these
were present in the extraordinary man who now attacked the problem that had
baffled so many.
On June 9, 1775, Georg Friedrich Grotefend was born at Münden, in Hanover, Germany. He was destined to become a classical philologist, and for this purpose studied first at Ilfeld and later at the University of Gottingen. Here he attracted much attention, not only as a classical scholar of promise, but also as an ingenious man with a passion for the unraveling of difficult and recondite questions. He formed the friendship in Gottingen of Heyne, Tychsen, and Heeren. On the recommendation of the first named, he was appointed in 1797 to an assistant mastership in the Gottingen Gymnasium. Two years later appeared his first work, which brought him reputation and a superior post in the Gymnasium at Frankfort-on-theMain. Up to this time he had given no attention to the study of oriental languages. But in 1802 his friend, the librarian Fiorillo, drew the attention of Grotefend to the inscriptions from Persepolis, and placed in his hands all the literature which had hitherto appeared.
Grotefend was at once enlisted, and, though he had no oriental learning,
set himself to the work, probably little dreaming of how many years of his life
would be spent upon these little inscriptions or upon the work which grew out
of them. His method was exceedingly simple, and may be made perfectly clear
without the possession of any linguistic knowledge. His fundamental principles
and his simplest facts were taken over bodily from his predecessors. He began
with the assumption that there were three languages, and that of these the
first was ancient Persian, the language of the Achaemenids, who had erected
these palaces and caused these inscriptions to be written. For his first
attempts at decipherment he chose two of these old Persian inscriptions and
laid them side by side. The ones which were chosen were neither too long nor
too short; the frequent recurrence of the same signs in them seemed to indicate
that their contents were similar, and finally they were clearly and apparently
accurately copied by Niebuhr. The inscriptions thus selected were those
numbered "B" and "G" by Niebuhr, which, for the purpose of
this exposition, may be designated simply as first and second (I and II).
Following Tychsen and Münster, he held that these inscriptions, which
accompanied figures of kings, were the titles of these monarchs, and were
presumably similar to the inscriptions of Sassanian kings which De Sacy had
just deciphered. Grotefend placed these two inscriptions side by side and
carefully examined them. In the work of Münter a word had been pointed out
which appeared frequently in these inscriptions, sometimes in a short form and
sometimes longer, as though in the latter case some grammatical termination had
been added to it. In these two inscriptions this word appeared both in the
shorter and in the longer form. Grotefend was persuaded that this word meant
king, as Münter had discovered, and that when it appeared twice in each of
these texts in exactly the same place, first the shorter and then the longer
form, the expression meant "king of kings". A glance at the plate
will show that in these two inscriptions, in the second line, after the first
word divider, appear the two sets of signs exactly alike, thus:
followed by the same word, but much increased in length, thus:
The supposition was that (a) meant king while (b) was the plural and
meant kings, the whole expression signifying king of kings. But further this
same word, supposed to be king, occurred again in both inscriptions, namely:
Here, then, was another expression containing the word king. What could it mean? Grotefend looked over De Sacy's translations of Sassanian inscriptions and found that the expression "great king" occurred in them, and then made the conjecture that this was the same expression, and that (c) meant "great", hence "king great", that is, great king. All this looked plausible enough, but it was, after all, only conjecture. It must all be supported by definite facts, and these words must each be separated into its alphabetic constituents and these understood, and supported by clear evidence, before anyone would or could believe in the decipherment. To this Grotefend now bent every energy. His method was as simple as before. He had made out to his own satisfaction the titles "great king, king of kings". Now, in the Sassanian inscriptions the first word was always the king's name, followed immediately by "great king, king of kings"; it was probably true in this case. But, if true, then these two inscriptions were set up by different kings, for the name in the first was:
while in the other it was:
But to simplify, or to complicate the matter, as one will, this name with which I begins appears in II in the third line, but changed somewhat in its ending, so that it stands thus:
From its situation in the two places Grotefend concluded that (d) was the name in the nominative and (f) was the same name in the genitive. Thus I begins "N great king, king of kings", and this same king appears in II thus: "of N." In number II this name was followed by the word for king, and after this another word which might mean "son", so that the whole phrase in II would be "of N king son," that is, "son of N king", the order of words being presumably different from that to which we are accustomed. But this same word, which is supposed to mean son, appears also in I, line five, thus:
where it follows a name which does not possess the title king. From all these facts Grotefend surmised that in these two inscriptions he had the names of three rulers: (1) the grandfather, who had founded a dynasty, but did not possess the title of king; (2), the son, who succeeded him and bore the title of king; and (3) the grandson, who also had the same title. The next thing to do was to search through all the known names of the Achaemenids to find three names which should suit. The first names thought of were Cambyses, Cyrus, and Cambyses. These will, however, not do, because the name of the grandfather and grandson are exactly alike, whereas on the two inscriptions they are different. The next three to be considered are Hystaspes, Darius, Xerxes. If these be correct, then the seven signs with which I begins must be the name Darius. The next thing in order was to find the form of the name Darius in ancient Persian. Of course Grotefend did not expect to find it written in that way exactly, for the modern European spelling has come to us from the Greek, and the Greeks were not careful to reproduce exactly the names of other peoples who were, in their view, only barbarians. He ascertained from the Hebrew lexicon that the Hebrews pronounced the word Daryavesh, while Strabo in one passage, in trying to represent as accurately as possible the Persian form, gave it as Dareiaves. Neither of these would work very well into the seven characters, and on a venture Grotefend gave the word the form of Darheush, and so the first word was thus to be set down:
That seemed to fit well enough, and as later investigations have shown, it was almost wholly correct, there being only errors in H and E, which did not vitiate the process, nor interfere with carrying it out further. The next task was to make out the name at the beginning of II. This was comparatively easy, for nearly all these same letters were here again used, and only the first was wanting. It was easy to supply this from the Hebrew form of the name and also from the Avestan language so recently deciphered. This name was therefore read thus:
The error in this also was exceedingly slight, when one considers the extreme difficulty of the task and the comparative bluntness of this tool of conjecture or surmise or, to put it boldly, guess. This name was supposed to be the Persian form for Xerxes. The next thing in order was to find the letters for the third name, and that was a much more difficult problem. This was the name which appears in I, line four, last word, thus:
Here were ten signs. Grotefend believed that this word was in the
genitive case, and some signs at the end must be cut off as the genitive
ending. But how many? That was the question. Perhaps the Avestan language (then
called Zend) would help him. To the study of this he now had recourse, and
after much doubt decided to cut off the last three as ending, and take what
remained as the king's real name. The name which he was seeking, as we have
already seen, was Hystaspes, the late Persian form of which Grotefend followed,
and thus made out the name:
In this word, as in the other two, later discovery showed that he had
made a mistake, but this time only in the first two characters. To Grotefend's
own mind the whole case seemed clear and indisputable, for the same characters
occurred in all three names, and thus each supported the other. At this time
the Persian alphabet was supposed to contain forty-two alphabetic characters,
of which Grotefend believed that he had found thirteen. To this he soon added more,
by a simple process of combination, using the word for the name of god in these
texts, namely, Aurmazda.
The case was a sad
one for the patient, plodding decipherer, for it was not easy to see how he
could gain any publicity for his work. At this juncture a personal friend, A.
H. L. Heeren, who was about to publish a book on the ancient world, offered to
give space in the appendix to Grotefend for the purpose of setting forth his
theories and discoveries. Grotefend eagerly seized the opportunity, and there
appeared his work. It met, on the whole, with a cold reception. Volney
denounced it as resting on forms of names which were at least doubtful and
might be incorrect, and with him joined many German voices. On the other hand
Anquetil-Duperron, now an aged man, waiting "with calmness the dissolution
of his mortal frame", and the immortal De Sacy received it with enthusiasm
and hailed it as the beginning of the sure reading of these inscriptions.
However unsuccessful the later efforts of Grotefend may have been,
nothing can ever dim the luster of his fame as a decipherer. It was he who
first learned how to read an ancient Persian word. From this, in due course,
came the power to read the words of Babylonian and Assyrian. In other words,
through the discoveries of Grotefend the world of ancient Persia was reopened,
and men learned to read its ancient inscriptions. By them also the much greater
worlds of Assyria and Babylonia were likewise rediscovered. Much of what we
know of ancient Persia came from them; almost all that we know of Assyria and
Babylonia was derived from them. To very few men, in all time, has it happened
to make discoveries of such moment.
While he still lived and worked others with better equipment in a
knowledge of the oriental languages took up his work. The first of these was a
Norwegian by birth, R. Rask. It was his good fortune to discover the plural
ending in ancient Persian, which had baffled Grotefend. In the work of
decipherment Grotefend never got so far as to determine all the characters in
the phrase, king of kings, and this was now achieved by Rask, who correctly
apportioned the characters. The same ending appears also in another word after
the word "king". Rask also for this suggested a very plausible
rendering. In the Sassanian inscriptions the phrase is "king of
lands"; why might not this be the same? That question would find its
answer at a later day.
And now appeared a man to grapple with the problem of the inscriptions
of Persepolis, who was in learning far better equipped than any who had
preceded him. This was the French savant, Eugene Burnouf. He had already gained
fame as the man who had given the grammar of Avestan a scientific basis. He
knew that language in all its intricacies. To this he added a knowledge of
Persian life and religion in the period following that to which these
inscriptions belonged. All this learning could be brought to bear upon these
inscriptions, and Burnouf used it all as a master. He found in one of the
little inscriptions which Niebuhr had copied at Naksh-i-Rustam a list of names
of countries. To this he gave close study, and by means of it accomplished
almost at a stroke several distinct achievements. In the first place he found
the equivalent for almost every character in the Persian alphabet. In the next
he determined finally that old Persian was not the same language as Avestan,
but that it was closely related to it, and that therefore there was good hope
that Avestan as well as certain Indo-European languages would contribute
important light to the study of old Persian.
Before his own discoveries were made in full, and before their
publication, Burnouf had called the attention of Lassen to this list of names.
Induced by the remarks of Burnouf, Lassen made this same list of names the
subject of investigation, and at about the same time as Burnouf published the
results of his study, which were almost identical. He had, however, made, in
one respect at least, very definite progress over Burnouf. He discovered that,
if the system of Grotefend were rigidly followed, and to every letter was given
the exact equivalent which Grotefend had assigned, a good many words could not
be read at all, while others would be left wholly or almost wholly without
vowels. As instances of such words he mentioned CPRD, THTGUS, KTPTUK, FRAISJM.
This situation led Lassen to a very important discovery, toward which his
knowledge of the Sanskrit alphabet did much to bring him. He came, in one word,
to the conclusion that the ancient Persian signs were not entirely alphabetic,
but were, partially at least, syllabic, that is, that certain signs were used
to represent not merely an alphabetic character like "b", but also a
syllable such as "ba", "bi", "bu". He believed
that he had successfully demonstrated that the sign for "a" was only
used at the beginning of a word, or before a consonant, or before another
vowel, and that in every other case it was included in the consonant sign. For
example, in inscription I the first word of the second line ought to be read
thus: Va Za Ra Ka. while in inscription II the middle word in line
three should be so read: Da Ra Ya Va.
while in inscription II the middle word in line three should be so read:
This discovery was of tremendous importance, and may be said to have
completely revolutionized the study of these long puzzling texts. To it two
other scholars made important contributions, the one being Beer, and the other
Jacquet, a Parisian savant.
This long line of successful decipherment had been carried on with only
a small portion of the inscriptions of ancient Persia, that were still in
existence. Other and better copies of the inscriptions were even at this time
in Europe, but had not been published. In 1811 an English traveler, Claudius
James Rich, had visited Persepolis and copied all the texts that were to be
found, including those which Niebuhr and his predecessors had copied. These
were discovered in the papers of Rich, and in 1839 were published, coming
naturally at once into the hands of Lassen, who found in them much new material
for the testing of his method and for the extension of the process of
decipherment.
Still greater and more valuable material was placed in Lassen's hands
through the travels of Westergaard, a Dane, who, in this, imitated worthily his
fellow-countryman Niebuhr. Westergaard had again gone over the old ground at
Persepolis and had there recopied and carefully collated all the well-known
inscriptions. In this he had not done a useless task, for only by oft-repeated
copying and comparing could the finally definite and perfect text be attained,
without which the decipherment would always be subject to revision. But
Westergaard went further than this; he visited at Naksh-i-Rustam the tombs of
the Persian kings, and there copied all the tomb inscriptions which were
hitherto unknown. On his return this new material was also made accessible to
Lassen, who was now fairly the leader in this work of decipherment. Lassen
found that the new copies of the old texts were so important that he went over
some of the ground afresh and found it useful to reedit some of his work which
had before seemed final. The same material called a new worker into the field
in the person of Holtzman, of Karlsruhe, in Germany, whose work, however, made
no very deep impression on the general movement.
RAWLINSON
In the work of decipherment thus far the chief positions had been held
by Grotefend and Burnouf, but for the maintaining of its international
character the time was calling for workers from other lands. As it happened, at
this very time an Englishman was at work on the same task, from a different
point of view, and with different materials. It was well that this was so, for
the conclusions thus far reached would probably have failed of general
acceptance but for the support obtained by the publication of similar results
achieved by a man of different nationality and diverse training. The history of
all forms of decipherment of unknown languages shows that skepticism concerning
them is far more prevalent than either its opposite, credulousness, or the
happy mean of a not too ready faith.
The man who was thus to rebuke the gainsayer and put the capstone upon
the work of the decipherment of the Persian inscriptions was Major, (afterward
Sir) Henry Rawlinson, who was born at Chadlington, Oxford, England, on April
11, 1810. While still a boy Rawlinson went out to India in the service of the
East India Company. There he learned Persian and several of the Indian
vernaculars. This training hardly seemed likely to produce a man for the work
of deciphering an unknown language. It was just such training as had produced
men like the earlier travelers who had made the first copies of the
inscriptions at Persepolis. It was, however, not the kind of education which
Grotefend, Burnouf, and Lassen had received. In 1833 the young Rawlinson went
to Persia, there to work with other British officers in the reorganization of
the Persian army. To Persia his services were of extraordinary value, and met
with hearty recognition. It was in Persia, while engaged in the laborious task
of whipping semi-barbarous masses of men into the severe discipline of the
soldier's life, that the attention of Rawlinson was attracted by some
inscriptions. The first that roused an interest in him were those at Hamadan,
which he copied with great care. This was in the year 1835, at a time when a
number of European scholars were earnestly trying to decipher the inscriptions
from Persepolis. Of all this eager work Rawlinson knew comparatively little. It
is impossible now to determine exactly when he first secured knowledge of
Grotefend's work, for Norris, the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, has
left us no record of when he first sent copies of Grotefend's essays to the
far-distant decipherer. Whatever was sent in the beginning, it is quite clear
that Rawlinson worked largely independently for a considerable time. He had
certainly begun his work and adopted his method before he learned of what was
going on in Europe.
Rawlinson's method was strikingly like that adopted in the first
instance by Grotefend. He had copied two trilingual inscriptions. That he had
before him three languages, and not merely three styles of writing, he appears
to have understood at once. To this ready appreciation of the presence of three
languages Rawlinson's experience of the polyglot character of the East had
probably contributed. In 1839 he thus wrote concerning his method of decipherment:
"When I proceeded ... to compare and interline the two inscriptions (or, rather, the Persian columns of the two inscriptions, for as the compartments exhibiting the inscription in the Persian language occupied the principal place in the tablets, and were engraved in the least complicated of the three classes of cuneiform writing, they were naturally first submitted to examination) I found that the characters coincided throughout, except in certain particular groups, and it was only reasonable to suppose that the groups which were thus brought out and individualized must represent proper names. I further remarked that there were but three of these distinct groups in the two inscriptions; for the group which occupied the second place in one inscription, and which, from its position, suggested the idea of its representing the name of the father of the king who was there commemorated, corresponded with the group which occupied the first place in the other inscription, and thus not only served determinately to connect the two inscriptions together, but, assuming the groups to represent proper names, appeared also to indicate a genealogical succession. The natural inference was that in these three groups of characters I had obtained the proper names belonging to three consecutive generations of the Persian monarchy; and it so happened that the first three names of Hystaspes, Darius, and Xerxes, which I applied at hazard to the three groups, according to the succession, proved to answer in all respects satisfactorily and were, in fact, the true identifications." In the autumn of 1836, while at Teheran, Rawlinson first secured an
acquaintance with the works of St. Martin and Klaproth, but found in them
nothing beyond what he had already attained by his own unaided efforts, and in
certain points he felt that he had gone further than they, and with greater
probability.
Rawlinson's next work was the copying of the great inscription of Darius on the rocks at Behistun.
This was a task of immense difficulty, carried on at
the actual risk of his life, from its position high up on the rocks and beneath
a blazing sun. In 1835, when he first discovered it, Rawlinson was able to
study it only by means of a field glass. At this time he could not copy the
whole text, but gained more of it in 1837, when he had become more skilled in
the strange character. In that year he forwarded to the Royal Asiatic Society
of London his translation of the first two paragraphs of this Persian
inscription, containing the name, titles, and genealogy of Darius. It must be
remembered that Rawlinson had accomplished this without a knowledge of the related
languages, except for what he could extract from the researches of
Anquetil-Duperron. In the autumn of 1838, however, he came into possession of
the works of Burnouf on the Avestan language, which proved of immense value in
his work. He also secured at the same time the copies of the Persepolis
inscriptions made by Niebuhr, Le Brun, and Porter, and the names of countries
in them were of great assistance to him, as they already had been to Burnouf
and Lassen. With the advantage of almost all that European scholars had done,
Rawlinson was now able to make rapid progress, and in the winter of 1838-1839
his alphabet of ancient Persian was almost complete. He was, however, unwilling
to publish his results until he had ransacked every possible source of information
which might have any bearing on the matter. In 1839 he was settled in Baghdad,
his work in reality finished and written out for publication, but still
hesitating and waiting for more light. Here he obtained books from England for
the study of Sanskrit, and a letter from Professor Lassen, which greatly
pleased him, though from it he was able to obtain only one character which he
had not previously known. Here also he received the copies which Mr. Rich had
made at Persepolis, and a transcript of an inscription of Xerxes at Van which
had been made by M. Eugene Bore. In this year (1839) he wrote his preliminary
memoir, and expected to publish it in the spring of 1840.
Just at this juncture he was suddenly removed from Baghdad and sent to
Afghanistan as political agent at Kandahar. In this land, then in a state of
war, he spent troublous years until 1843. He was so absorbed in war, in which
he won distinction, and in administration as well, that his oriental studies
had to be given up entirely.
In December, 1843, he was returned to Baghdad, the troubles in
Afghanistan being for the time ended, and at once resumed his investigations.
Here he obtained the fresh copies and corrections of the Persepolitan
inscriptions which Westergaard had made, and later made a journey to Behistun
to perfect his copies of those texts which had formed the basis of his first
study. At last, after many delays and discouragements, he published, in 1846,
in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, his memoir, or series of memoirs, on
the ancient Persian inscriptions, in which for the first time he gave a nearly
complete translation of the whole Persian text of Behistun. In this Rawlinson
attained an imperishable fame in oriental research. His work had been carried
on under difficulties, of which the European scholars had never even dreamed,
but he had surpassed them all in the making of an intelligible and connected
translation of a long inscription. Remarkable as this was, perhaps the most
noteworthy matter in connection with his work was this, that much of it had
been done with small assistance from Europe. He had, indeed, received from
Norris, Grotefend's results, though not at the very beginning, and he was later
supplied with all that other scholars had been able to accomplish. Furthermore,
as early as 1837 he was in correspondence with Burnouf and Lassen, from both of
whom he gained assistance. When all allowance is made for these influences, his
fame is not diminished nor the extent of his services in the decipherment
curtailed. His method was settled early and before he knew of Lassen's work.
That two men of such different training and of such opposing types of mind
should have lighted upon the same method, and by it have attained the same
results, confirmed, in the eyes of many, the decipherment.
The whole history of the decipherment of these ancient Persian
inscriptions is full of surprises, and another now followed immediately. In
January, 1847, the Dublin University Magazine contained an unsigned article
with the taking title, "Some Passages of the Life of King Darius",
the opening sentences of which were as follows:
"In adding this new name to the catalogue of royal authors, we
assure our readers that we are perfectly serious. The volume which contains
this monarch's own account of his accession, and of the various rebellions that
followed it, is now before us; and unpretending as it is in its appearance, we
do not hesitate to say that a more interesting—and on many accounts a more
important—addition to our library of ancient history has never been
made."
After this introduction the writer proceeds to narrate how Major
Rawlinson had copied at Behistun the inscription of Darius and how he had
successfully deciphered it. As the paper proceeds, the anonymous writer goes
beyond the work of Rawlinson to tell of what had been done in Europe by
Grotefend and others, displaying in every sentence the most exhaustive
acquaintance with the whole history of the various attempts at decipherment.
Then he falls into courteous and gentle but incisive criticism of some of Major
Rawlinsou's readings or translations, and herein displays a mastery of the
whole subject which could only be the result of years of study. There was but
one man in Ireland who could have written such a paper as that, and he was a
quiet country rector at Killyleagh, County Down, the Rev. Edward Hincks.
He was born at Cork, in 1792, and was therefore the senior of Rawlinson
by about eighteen years. After an education at Trinity College, Dublin, that
wonderful nursery of distinguished Irishmen, where he took a gold medal in
1811, he was settled in 1825 at Killyleagh, to spend the remainder of his life.
His first contributions to human learning appear to have been in mathematics,
but he early began to devote himself to oriental languages, publishing in 1832
a Hebrew grammar. He was one of the pioneers of Egyptian decipherment, and his
contributions to that great work are acknowledged now to be of the highest
rank. Unhappily his life has never been worthily written, and it is impossible
to determine just when he first began to study the inscriptions of Persepolis.
It is, however, clear that, independently of Rawlinson, he arrived at the
meaning of a large number of signs, and had among his papers, before
Rawlinson's work appeared, translations of some of the Persepolitan texts. His
first published memoir was read before the Royal Irish Academy on June 6, 1846,
having been written in the month of May in that year. In this paper Hincks
shows an acquaintance with the efforts at decipherment which had been made by
Westergaard and Lassen, but he seems not to have seen the works of the other
continental decipherers. He had much surpassed these two without the advantage
which they enjoyed of more complete literature.
In the work of Hincks the Persepolitan inscriptions had been now for the
third time independently deciphered and in part translated. With this Dr.
Hincks did not cease his work, but went on to larger conquests, of which we
shall hear later in this story.
The work of decipherment was now over as far as the ancient Persian
inscriptions were concerned. There was, of course, much more to be learned
concerning the language and concerning the historical material which the
inscriptions had provided. On these and other points investigation would go on
even to this hour. But the pure work of the decipherer was ended, the texts
were read. A language long dead lived again. Men long silent had spoken again.
It seemed a dream; it was a genuine reality, the result of long and painful
study through a series of years by scores of men, each contributing his share.
Though the work upon Persian was in this advanced stage, very little had
yet been done with the other two languages upon these same inscriptions. What
might be the result of a similar study of them nobody now knew. It was believed
that the columns written in two other languages contained the same facts as
those which had been so laboriously extracted from old Persian, and there was,
therefore, little incitement to their study. Before the end of this period,
however, there were beginning to be hints that these other two languages were
important, and that one of them was the representative of a great people who
possessed an extensive literature. The proofs that this was indeed true were
now slowly beginning to accumulate, and, when enough of them were gathered to
make an impression, the men who were gifted with the decipherer's skill would
turn from the Persian to unravel the secrets of the unknown and unnamed
languages which the kings of Persia had commanded to be set up by the side of
their own Persian words. Great results had already flowed from the Persian
studies. New light had been cast upon many an enigmatical passage in Herodotus;
a whole kingdom had been permitted to speak, not through its enemies, as
before, but for itself. But all this was as nothing compared with the untold,
unimagined results which were soon to follow from a study of the third language
which existed in all the groups at Persepolis. To this study men were now to be
wrought up by the brilliant work of explorers.
We have traced one story—the story of decipherment. We turn now to a second story, the story of exploration.
EXCURSUSTHE ROMANTIC HISTORY OF FLOWER'S COPIES OF INSCRIPTIONS
The first characters from Persepolis which were published in England
appeared in the Philosophical Transactions for June, 1693, and their history
was so peculiar and of such considerable importance that they are here
reproduced and the story of their misuse in various forms is set forth.
The beginning of the story is found in a letter sent by Francis Aston to
the publisher, which, with all its solecisms, runs thus:
"Sir, I here send you some Fragments of Papers put into my hands by
a very good Friend, relating to antique and obscure Inscriptions, which were
retrieved after the Death of Mr. Flower, Agent in Persia for our East India
Company; who while he was a Merchant at Aleppo had taken up a resolution to
procure some Draught or Representation of the admired Ruines at Chilmenar,
pursuant to the third Enquiry for Persia, mentioned in the Philosophical
Transactions, pag. 420, viz., whether there being already good Descriptions in
words of the Excellent Pictures and Basse Relieves that are about Persepolis at
Chilmenar yet none very particular, some may not be found sufficiently skilled
in those parts, that might be engaged to make a Draught of the Place, & the
Stories their [sic] pictured & carved. This Desire of the Royal Society, as
I believe, it hinted at a Summary Delineation, wh might be perform'd by a Man
qualify'd in a few days, taking his own opportunity for the avoiding much
Expence, (wh you know they are never able to bear:) So I cannot but think Mr.
Flower conceived it to be a business much easier to perform then [sic] he found
it upon the place, where he spent a good deal of Time and Money, & dying
suddainly after, left his Draughts & Papers dispersed in several hands, one
part whereof you have here, the rest its hoped may in some wise be recovered,
if Sir John Chardin's exact & accurate Publication of the entire Word do
not put a period to all further Curiosity, wh I heartily wish."
Accompanying this letter was a lithographed plate of inscriptions from
Nocturestand, that is Naksh-i-Rustam, and from Chahelminar, that is,
Persepolis. They had been copied by Flower in November, 1667. The first,
second, and fourth of these inscriptions are Sassanian and Greek, while the
third and sixth are Arabic. The fifth consists of two lines of cuneiform
characters as follows:
To these cuneiform characters Mr. Flower had added this explanatory
note:
"This character, whether it be the ancient writing of the Gawres
and Gabres, or a kind of Telesmes is found only at Persepolis, being a part of
what is there engraven in white Marble, & is by no man in Persia legible or
understood at this Day. A Learned Jesuit Father, who deceased three years
since, affirmed this character to be known & used in Egypt."
The editor appended to this a note which showed that he was a man of
some penetration "it seems written from the Left Hand to the Right, and to
consist of Pyramids, diversely posited, but not joined together. As to the
Quantity of the Inscriptions, Herbert reckon'd in one large Table Twenty Lines
of a prodigious Breadth. Of this sort here are distinct Papers, each of several
Lines."
Aston appears to have been much interested in these papers of his
deceased friend, for he recurs to the matter again to say that in February,
1672, Flower had compared these cuneiform signs with twenty-two characters,
"Collected out of the Ancient Sculptures, to be found this day extant in
the admired Hills of Canary."
It is unfortunate that Flower died without publishing his own copies of
inscriptions. If he had lived to give them forth, a curious catalogue of
mistakes might have been avoided.
Mr. Aston doubtless supposed that the characters formed an inscription
either complete or at least connected. These characters, as a matter of fact,
were selected by Flower from the three languages at Persepolis, and do not form
an inscription at all. As published by Aston they are taken at random from
Persian, Susian, and Assyrian, as the following list will show. The first line
begins with three Persian characters (a, ra, sa), the next is Assyrian (u), and
after it the Persian word-divider. After these come one Persian (th) and three
Assyrian (bu, sa, si) syllabic signs; then one Susian (sa), one Assyrian (rad),
one Persian (h), and finally one Assyrian (i) character. The second line is
equally mixed. It begins with a Persian sign (probably bumi) followed by three
Assyrian (a, u, nu), one Susian (ak) and then another Assyrian (kha) sign.
These are followed by one Susian (ti), one Persian (kh), one Assyrian (ya), and
finally one Susian (ta). The signs were exceedingly well copied, and it is a
pity that a man who could copy so well had not been able to issue all his work.
It might have hastened the day of the final decipherment.
Instead of really contributing to a forward movement in the study of the
Persepolis inscriptions, Flower's copies resulted in actual hindrance to the
new study.
The history of this retrograde movement is a curious chapter in the
history of the science of language. It deserves to be followed step by step if
for naught else than for its lessons in the weaknesses of human nature.
The cuneiform characters of Flower now began an extraordinary and
unexpected career. The first man who appears to have noticed them was Thomas
Hyde. Hyde was professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford, but, like other
Hebrew professors in later days, devoted much energy to other oriental study.
His great book was on the religion of the Persians, in which he discussed many
things, without always displaying much willing receptiveness for things that
were new. He reproduced in a plate the cuneiform characters of Flower, along
with some Sassanian and Palmyrene inscriptions. Over the Sassanian and
Palmyrene texts Hyde waxes eloquent of denunciation. He bewails the sad fact
that these "wretched scribblings, made perhaps by ignorant soldiers,"
had been left to vex a later day. Then he comes to a discussion of the
cuneiform characters, and gives them that very name (dactuli pyramidales seu
cuneiformes.) Next he quotes Aston's statement that Herbert had mentioned twenty
lines of cuneiform writing at Persepolis. Hyde waves this statement
majestically aside, and gives a long argument to show that these signs were not
letters, nor intended for letters, but are purely ornamental. He attached great
importance to the interpunction in Flower's copy, and adds that Herbert and
Thevenot had given three lines of the same kind of ornamentation, but as they
did not give any interpunction, he pronounces their copies worthless. Just here
he made a series of mistakes. In the first place, of course, the interpunction
was the invention of Flower, and was, as we now see, merely his way of
indicating that he had copied only separate and selected signs. In the next
place, Thevenot gives no copies of inscriptions at all. Hyde had evidently seen
some copies in some place and was quoting from memory. One wonders whether he
had not seen the copies of Mandeslo, and had in memory confused him with
Thevenot.
The next man who was moved to make use of the characters of Flower was a
Dutchman, Witsen, who was gifted with a keen eagerness for the marvelous. He
calmly reproduces Flower's characters, which he had most probably copied from
Hyde, and introduces them to his readers in a remarkable narrative. "In
the lands beyond Tarku, Boeriah, and Osmin," he says, "is a country
where a German medical man, who had traversed it when flying from the anger of
Stenko Rasin, has told me he had seen on arches, walls, and mountains
sculptured letters of the same form as those found on the ruins of Persepolis,
which he had also seen. This writing belonged, it is said, to the language of
the ancient Persians, Gabres, Gabres, or worshipers of fire. Two specimens of
them are given here, though these characters are now unintelligible. Throughout
the whole country, said this medical man, above all at a little distance from
Derbent, in the mountains beside which the road passes, one sees sculptured on
the rock figures of men dressed in strange fashion like that of the ancient
Greeks, or perhaps Romans, and not only solitary figures, but entire scenes and
representations of men engaged in the same business, besides broken columns,
aqueducts, and arcades for walking over pits and valleys. Among other monuments
there is there a chapel built of stone, and reverenced by some Armenian Christians
who live in its neighborhood, and on the walls of which were engraved many of
the characters of which I have spoken. This chapel had formerly belonged to the
pagan Persians who adored a divinity in fire."
This whole account bears every mark of having been manufactured to fit
the inscriptions. No such ruins have been seen by any person in the country
described, and no inscriptions have been found there. The cuneiform characters
had to be accounted for in some way, and this was Witsen's method.
But more and worse things were still to be invented to account for these
same little characters of Flower.
In 1723 Derbent and Tarku were visited by Dimitri Cantemir, Prince of
Moldavia, who had the patronage of the czar, Peter the Great, in his search for
antiquities and inscriptions. He died at Derbent, and the inscriptions he saw
are all catalogued by Frahm, and there is no cuneiform inscription among them.
The prince's papers passed into the hands of Th. S. Bayer, who utilized them in
a book, De Muro Caucaseo, in which he tried to prove that this wall was built
in the time of the Medo-Persian empire. Now, Bayer was acquainted with Witsen's
book, and made references to it, but he evidently did not believe in the
marvelous story which Wit en told concerning the cuneiform inscriptions, for he
makes no reference to it at all, whereas that would have given the most
conclusive proof of the main thesis of his book which could possibly be
suggested. Here were inscriptions of the Medo-Persian people, found at the very
wall which he desired to prove was Medo-Persian in origin. But the end was not
yet concerning the papers of the unfortunate Prince of Moldavia. Professor
Guldenstadt planned a trip through the Caucasus in 1766-69, and friends put in
his hands certain papers to be used on the journey. Among them was a copy of
Flower's cuneiform characters. It seems probable that he was informed that this
copy belonged to Cantemir's papers, for when Guldenstadt's papers came into the
hands of Klaproth he attached to the Flower characters this note:
"Inscriptions de Tarkou, d'apres un Dessin du prince Dimitri Cantemir, qui
se trouvait avec les Instructious de Guldenstadt. St. P. 4 Aug., 1807".
Now here, by a chapter of accidents, mistakes, and deceits, were Flower's signs
localized at Tarku, and of course considered a veritable inscription.
In 1826 F. E. Schulz was sent by the French government to the East to
search for inscriptions, and he took with him the Flower signs, with Klaproth's
note attached. It was probably his intention to go to Tarku and collate the
copy with the original inscription, for of course he had no doubt that it
really existed. Schulz, however, was murdered at Julameih in 1829, and when
many of his papers were recovered, here was found among them the same old copy
of Flower. Schulz's copies were published, and the "inscription of
Tarku" appears with the rest.
The next man to allude to it was Saint Martin, who gravely informs his
readers that this inscription was carved above the gate of Tarku, thus adding a
little definiteness to the tradition.
Naturally enough the Flower copy made its way to Grotefend, who was,
however, not deceived by it. He recognized at once that it really consisted of
a number of characters selected from all three languages which were found at
Persepolis, though he did not know that Flower was the copyist. This was in
1820, and one might have expected that this would end the wanderings and the
fictitious history of Flower's copies. But not just yet; there was still vigor
in the story and the race was not yet over.
In 1836 Burnouf got a copy of the same lines and set to work earnestly
to decipher them. He found that they contained the name of Arsakes, repeated
three times.
In 1838 Beer discussed the lines, and attached himself to Grotefend's
view, recognizing the fact that they did not form an inscription at all.
Burnouf's translation did not suit the next investigator very well, and
he began afresh to decipher and translate. This was A. Holtzmann, who argued
learnedly that the lines formed a genuine Persepolitan text of great interest.
The inscription was indeed a memorial of Arses, who was murdered in B.C. 336
by Bagoas. Holtzmann thus translated the text "Arses (son) of Artaxerxes,
King of Provinces, the Achaemenian, made (this)."
Here was indeed a fitting conclusion of the whole matter. Flower had
copied a few signs out of three different languages, and out of them had been
woven this elaborate history. It is a melancholy story from one point of view.
But it is instructive also as showing that progress in knowledge is not
uniform, but has its undertow as well as its advancing wave. Happily there is a
dash of humor in it as well.
2EXPLORATIONS IN ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA
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