o JiliJNV-SOV so \ms//j '/r HXi'mi^. O ^OFCALIF0% ^^OFCAIIFO/?^ '''5a3AINfl3WV^ '^6'AWaaiH^ '^^AMVJiaiH'^ >- or <: M\ ^ILIBRARY ^WEUNIVERVa 'iOdlTVOJO'^ DO %a3AiNn-3WV^ yOFCAllFO/?^ s f ^;lOSANCElfj"^ %a3AiNn-3i\v ^■OFCA ^. ^j:?i3onvso" KlOSANCEl.^ , A U DO 3> '^a3AINfl-3\^" ,^^l•LIBRARY•ac -v^HIBRARV %OJI1VJJO^ ^^03I1V3JO^ ^WEUNIVER% ^^J13DNVS0rv^ o^lOSANCEir '^Aa3AINfl-3\^^ ,OFCALIF0Mi^ ^OFCALIF0% '^CAavaaiH^ >- < ^WEI (^J, AtllBRARYf \WEIINIVER% ^lOSANCElfx, m-i^ ^tfOJIlVDJO^ '^J'il3DNVS01^ -< %a3AINIl-3WV^ CO A,OF CAtlFO/?x^ jA:OFCAllF0ft|^ 4? ,^MEUNIVER% ^lOSANGElfx> a ^ =o 3 ^/Sa3AINn3WV ^OFCAUFOffi^ ^.OFCALIF0% . ^WE UNIVERS/A A>:lOSAf ^^^Ayvaaii-^s^ "^d^Ayvaani^ 3 ^iSfOJUvj-jo"^ ^/5a3AiNn]WV ^^^UIBRARYQ^ -^tLIBRARY6k ^-aodiivojo^ ^ojnvojo'f^ ^\^EUNIVERy//- o %a]Ai >:lOSANCELfj> ^^BAiNnawv ^OFCALIF0% K/ ,>;,OFCALIF0% O P= t\ / >i^ \ CD ^OAJivaaiii^ ^^^Aavaan-^- AWEUNIVERj/A ^tLIBRARYQ^ AWEUNIVERS"//. vS;lOSANCElfj> ^juvDjo"^ ^IIIBRARYQ^ ^Um ^ o ^OFCAllFOfiV 4? ^OFCA ^ A HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA BY ROBERT WILLIAM ROGERS PH.D. (LEIPZIG), D.D., LL.D., F.R.G.S., PROFESSOR IN DREW THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, MADISON, NEW JERSEY THIRD EDITION IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME I NEW YORK : EATON & MAINS CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE Copyright, looo, by EATON & MAINS New York A-H Rights Reserved First EditioD printed NoTember, 1900. Second Edition printed March, 1901. Second Edition reprinted June, 1901. Tliird Edition printed March, 1902. no a •'t give tbis fault? bool? to vjou, ^or tbo' tbc faults be tbicft as Just ■fln vacant cbambcis, U can trust gour woman's nature ^!in^ an^ true." PREFACE. During the past ten years, when not absorbed in the duties of a busy professorship, I have given my time to the preparation of this work. In its inter- est I have made repeated journeys to Europe, and also to the East, and the greater part of the text has been written in the University Library at Leipzig, the British Museum in London, and the Bodleian Library in Oxford. In the last named I have had especial opportunity to investigate the early his- tory of cuneiform research in the almost unrivaled collections of early travelers and decipherers. Large parts of the book have been rewritten twice or thrice as changes in opinion and the discovery of fresh monumental material have modified the views previously entertained. Whatever may be the judgment of my fellow-investigators in this difficult field, it will not truthfully be said that I have not taken pains. Every part of the two volumes rests upon origi- nal sources, yet I have tried to consider all that modern Assyriologists have brought forward in elucidation of them, and have sought to give due credit for every explanation which I have ac- cepted, and to treat with courtesy and respect any that I have ventured to reject. The progress of vi PREFACE. Assyriology in the past twenty years has been so rapid that every book on the history of Babylonia and Assyria published prior to 1880 is hopelessly antiquated, and many issued much later would need extensive revision. The work of investiga- tion has fallen necessarily into the hands of spe- cialists, and so vast has the field grown that there are now specialists in even small parts of the sub- ject. The results of all this detailed research are scattered in scientific journals and monographs in almost all the languages of Europe. To sift, weigh, and decide upon their merits is no easy task, and I am sadly conscious that it might have been better done ; yet am I persuaded that schol- ars who know the field intimately will recognize the difficulties and be most ready to pardon the shortcomings which each may discover in his own province. I have sou2:ht to tell the whole storv as scholars now generally understand it, rather being disposed to yield to the consensus of opinion, when any exists, than eager to set forth novel personal opinions. Yet in parts of the field at least I may claim to be an independent investigator, and to have made contributions to the knowledge of the subject. In travel and in research in the libraries and museums of Paris, Berlin, Cairo, Constantinople, and elsewhere I have received many courtesies which I should gladly acknowledge here did it not seem disproportionate to carve great names on PREFACE. vii SO small a structure. The obligations to my frieud Professor Sayce are, lio^vever, so unusual that they must be expressed. He has read the entire book in manuscript, and made many suggestions, some of which led me to change my view, while others showed me wherein I had written obscurely or had failed to defend my position adequately. I am grateful to him for this new illustration of his unfailing kindness and generosity to younger men. I take leave of the book with mingled pleasure and regret, hoping only that it may prove suffi- ciently useful to demand and deserve a revision at no distant day. ROBERT W. ROGERS. Madison, New Jersey, September 18, 1900. CONTENTS. BOOK I : PROLEGOMENA. CHAPTER I. Early Travelers and Early Decipherers. PAGE Ignorance concerning Babylonia before 1820 . . 1 Two lines of research 2 The ruins of Persepolis, Mount Rachmet ... 3 Odoric's account of Comum (Comerum) . . 4 Importance of Odoric's account ..... 5 Josophat Barbaro at Camara ..... G Barbaro and Antonio de Gouvea Y Gouvea's account of Chelminira . . . . " 8 The great stones, staircases, and columns ... 9 The inscriptions as Gouvea saw them . . . 10 The embassy of Don Garcia de Sylva y Figueroa . 1 1 His description of the ruins of Persepolis . . . 12 Sculpture at Persepolis . . . . . . . 13 Inscriptions . . . . . . . .14 End of Figueroa's account . . . . . . 15 Letters of Pietro della Valle. Copy of inscription . 16 His speculations concerning the characters . .17 Thomas Herbert, 1634 18 His account of the inscriptions . . . . . 19 Mandelslo's account. Herbert, 1677 ... 20 Further descriptions by Herbert . . . .21 Herbert's later account of the inscriptions . . 22 His copy of the characters . . . c . . 23 Sir John Chardiu born 1643 . . . . . 24 CONTENTS. Chardin's account; Jean Baptiste Taveruier Carreri on the inscriptions Continuation of his account Carreri's copy of the characters Estimate of Carreri's work . Kaempfer's narrative Cornelis de Bruin, 1704 Small influence of the travelers Publication of vase, 1762 Carsten Niebuhr, 1765 Niebuhr's work at Persepolis Niebuhr's publications, 1774-1837 His copies and analyses Tychsen and Miinter Tychsen's erroneous translation Miinter's better success Anquetil-Duperron, 1731 His publication of Zend-Avesta De Sacy and Sassanian Summaiy of materials for decipherment The problem of decipherment CHAPTER II. Gkotefend and Rawlistson Grotef end born 1775 . Begins decipherment Inscriptions " b " and " g " of Niebuhr Persian equivalents for king Equivalents for " king of kings " . The names Hyst.asj^es, Darius, and Xerxes Darheush and Ciishharsha . Goshtasp ....... Grotef end's partial t riinslations . Heeren assists Grotefend Abbe Saint-Martin . . . . (rrotefend's later work .... Rask and Eugene Burnouf CONTENTS. xi PAGE The lists of names at Naksh-i-Rustam . . . 59 Lassen's work ........ 60 Rich copies Persepolis texts . . . . . 61 Westergaard's copies . . , . . . .62 Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1810, birth and education . 63 Rawlinson's attempts to decipher . . . .64 His own account ....... 65 He copies inscriptions at Behistun . . .66 Rawlinson sent to Afghanistan .... 67 Rawlinson's memoir on Persian inscriptions . . 68 His obligations to others ..... 69 The Rev. Edward Hincks 70 His education and early labors . . . . 71 The close of the Persian decipherment . . .72 Other problems . . . . . . . 73 Flower's lettei's ........ 74 His copies of cuneiform characters .... 75 Aston's publication of them . . . . .76 A retrograde movement begins . . . . 77 Thomas Hyde quotes Flower . . . . .78 Witsen reproduces Flower's signs .... 79 Cantemir visits Tarku ...... 80 Guldenstadt and Schulz 81 St. Martin and Burnouf 82 Holtzmann's translation of Flower's cop}' . . 83 CHAPTER III. Early Explorers in Babylonia. The Middle Age ignorant of Babylon Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela His accounts of Nineveh and Babylon His account of Babylon continued . The influence of his narrative John Eldred, 1583 . His account of Babylon He confuses Baghdad and Babylon Anthony Shirley, 1599 . . . UT 85 . 86 87 . 88 89 . 90 91 . 92 xii CONTENTS. His influence on later explorers John Cartwright visits Nineveh .... His account of the city ..... And of Babylon ...... Gasparo Balbi visits Babylon .... Athanasius Kircher receives a brick from Babylon End of the age of travelers .... PAGK 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 CHAPTER IV. Explorations in Assyria and Babylonia, 1734-1820. Jean Otter begins the new age of exploration . .100 Saint Albert visits the East 101 His description of Hillah . . . . . .102 D'Anville on Babylon 103 Niebuhr visits Babylon 1765 ..... 104 And also Nineveh . . . . . . . 1 05 Beauchamj) describes Babel . . . . .106 And Makloube 107 He recognizes relationship of Babylonian script . 108 Olivier succeeds him . . . . . .109 Joseph Hager publishes a remarkable book . .110 He shows that Babylon was earlier than Persepolis . Ill Great influence of his book . . . . .112 Claudius James Rich born 1787 . . . . 113 His first impressions of Babylon . . . .114 Further description, and first excavations, 1811 . 115 Rennell's criticism of Rich , . . , .116 Rich visits Neby Yunus and Kuyunjik . . . 117 Suspicions of the natives . . . . . .118 Rich visits Persepolis . . . . . .119 His influence upon cuneiform research . . .120 Sir Robert Ker Porter visits Rich at Baghdad . 121 His unique equipment for exploration . . .122 Porter's book on Babylon . . . . .123 Close of another period of exploration . . .124 Rich and Porter as leaders in it . . . . 125 CONTENTS. ziu CHAPTER V. Julius Mohl begins residence in Paris 1823 Botta sent to Mosul as vice consul 1842 . The town of Mosul at that time city 844 1 40. Excavations in Assyria and Babylonia, 1843-1854. PAoa . 126 127 . 128 General view of mounds opposite the city . .129 Botta searches Mosul for antiquities Kuyunjik selected for first excavations Small success of his efforts . Begins excavations at Khorsabad Encouraged by Mohl . Difficulties with Turkish officials Work resumed May 4, 1844 End of Botta's excavations, October, Austen Henry Layard born 1817 His extensive journey with Mitford First description of Nimroud Layard visits Botta at Mosul . Layard begins collecting funds to excavate in First night at Nimroud .... Discovers winged bull in the mound . Description of the scene .... Excitement caused by discovery . Second pair of human-headed lions found Layard's musings over the discoveries And reflections upon their interest . Layard's gifts in description Permission from Constantinople to continue the work 153 Hormuzd Rassam acts as assistant . . . .154 Obelisk of Shalmaneser II found .... 155 Excavations at Kalah Shergat . . . . . 156 Layard's expedition of 1849 . . ... .157 Returns to England 1852 158 Fruitfulness of his work . . . . . .159 William Kennett Loftus in the Orient . . .160 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 141 142 Assyria 143 144 . 145 146, 147 . 148 149 . 150 151 . 152 PAGE . 161 . 162 163, 164 . 165 167, 168 169, 170 171 172, 173 174 xiv CONTENTS. Excavates at Warka . . . Assyrian Excavation Fund organized Taylor excavates at Mugheir , ... The French expedition to Babylonia . Kassam begins work at Kuyunjik . . 166, Discoveries made by him there Jones surveys Nineveh .... Rawlinson makes discovery at Ur . Close of excavations ...... CHAPTER VI. Thb Decipherment of Assyrian. The problem . . . . . . . .175 Westergaard begins the work . . . . 176 De Saulcy uses the name Assyriaa . . . .177 Xorris publishes second column of Behistun texts . 178 The second form of writing deciphered . . . 17& Loewenstein begins Assyrian decipherment . 180, 181 Hincks continues his work . . . . . .182 Longperier translates one of Botta's inscriptions 183, 184 Botta makes some contributions toward the solution 185 De Saulcy makes futile attempts . . . .186 Hincks is much more successful . . . 187, 188 Rawlinson does not equal him . . . . .189 Publication of Rawlinson's Memoir . . 190, 191 Hincks makes still further contributions . 192, 193 Workers increase in number . . . . .194 Fox Talbot proposes a test of the decipherment 195, 196 Effect of the demonstration . . . . .197 Organization of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 198, 199 CHAPTER Vn. The Decipherment op Sumerian and of Vannic. Disputes concerning the origin of cuneiform signs 200 Rawlinson announces discovery of non-Semitic in- scriptions . . . . . . .201 CONTENTS. His studies of " Scythian " inscriptions . Ilincks names the language Old Chaldean . Sayee publishes important paper on Accadian LejQormant writes grammar of Sumerian Solution of the problem in 1873 Halevy denies the existence of Sumerian But does not convince Assyriologists Halevy's theory gains recruits Defends his thesis at Leiden, 1883 . Delitzsch joins Halevy and later deserts him The end of Sumerian decipherment Schulz finds inscriptions at Van . Edward Hincks begins their decipherment . Which is continued by Lenormant and Mordtmann Guyard finds a valuable clue to the language Sayce independently finds the same clue And deciphers the Vannic inscriptions . Belck and Lehmann on Chaldian language CHAPTER Vin. ExPLORATioxs IX Assyria and Babylonia, 1872-1900. Julius Mohl, Secretary of the Societe Asiatique . . 225 George Smith begins his work . . . 226, 227 He attempts Cypriote decipherment .... 228 Finds fragments of deluge tablet .... 229 Important meeting of the Society of Biblical Archae- , ology 230 Daily Telegraph expedition to Assyria . . 231 Smith's second and third expeditions .... 232 Smith's death at Aleppo, 1876 . . . . 233 Rassam undertakes a new expedition , . 234, 235 De Sarzec's excavations at Tello . . 236, 237, 238 The Wolfe expedition to Babylonia , . . 239, 240 The Philadelphia expedition begins work . . 241 The second and third campaigns . . . 242, 243 The remarkable work of Haynes at Nip})ur . 244, 245 Hilprecht in charge of excavations .... 246 XV PAGE . 202 203 204 205 . 206 207, 208 209, 210 . 211 212 213, 214 215 216, 217 218, 219 lann 220 221 . 222 . 223 224 xvi CONTENTS. PAOa The German expedition at Babylon . . . 247 Discoveries at Tell-el-Amarna . . . .248, 249 Turkish expedition at Sippar . . . 250, 251 Conclusion of period of excavation . . . 252, 253 CHAPTER IX. The Soukces. The monuments of Babylonia and Assyria . . 254 Their character 255, 256 Egyptian texts and the Old Testament as sources . 257 Greek and Latin writers ..... 258 Berossos 259, 260 Ktesias 261, 262 Herodotus 263, 264 Lesser authorities 265 CHAPTER X. The Lands of Babylonia and Assyria. The boundaries of the two countries . . 266, 267 Chaldea and Assyria ....... 268 Mesopotamia 269 Sources of the Tigris and Euphrates . . 270, 271 Their tributaries 272, 273 Flood periods in the rivers . . . . .274 Canal system 275 Other water supplies . . . . . , .276 Climate of the great valley . . . . . 277 Incursions of sand . . . . . . .278 Temperate winters . . . . . . 279 Fertility of the soil 280, 281 Its cereals, vegetables, and trees . . . . 282 The fauna of the country 283, 284 The elephant and the wild ass .... 285 No mineral wealth in Babylonia . . . .286 Clay as a building material ..... 287 Stone found plentifully in Assyria .... 288 CONTENTS. Cities of Babylonia : Eridii . Ur and Larsa .... Girsu, Uruk .... Isin and Nippm - .... Babyl on ..... Kutha, Dur-Kurigalzu, and Opis Cities of Assyria: Asshur Calah and Nineveh . Dur-Sharrukin and Arbailu Na9ibina and Harran CHAPTER XI. xvu FAGB 289 . 290 291, 292 . 293 294, 295 296 . 297 298 . 299 300, 301 The Peoples of Babylonia and Assyria. The early Babylonians ...... 302 The Sumerian language 303 The Sumerian people ...... 304 Invasion of Semites ....... 305 Original home of Semites .... 306, 307 Origin and character of Assyrians . . . 308, 309 The Chaldeans 310, 311 CHAPTER XII. The Chronology. Babylonian chronological materials The King Lists ...... Babylonian Chronicles .... Boundary stone of Bel-nadin-apli The Nabonidus Chronological materials Date of Sargon I and Naram-Sin Date of Marduk-nadin-akhe . External indications of age Assyrian chronological material Expedition Lists and Synchronistic Histoiy Statements of Sennacherib inscriptions Chronology in Tiglathpileser's texts Greek writers : Berossos . 312 313 314, 315 . 316 317, 318 319 320, 321 322 323 . 324 325 . 326 327, 328 xviii CONTENTS. PAGE The beginning of Babylonian history • . . .329 Statements of Simplicius .... 330, 331 Schwartz on chronology of Berossos . .: . 332 The Canon of Ptolemy 333, 334 Egyptian inscriptions and Old Testament . . 335 Tables of chronology : Early Babylonia . 336, 337 First dynasty . . . . . . . 338 Second dynasty . . . . . . 339 Third dynasty 340, 341 Fourth dynasty • 342, 343 Fifth, sixth, and seventh dynasties . . . 344 Eighth and ninth dynasties .... 345 Chronology of Assyria, Ishakkus of Asshur . 346 Kings of Assyria . . . . . 347, 348 BOOK II: THE HISTORY OF BABYLONIA. CHAPTER I. The History of Babylonia to thk Fall of Laksa. The difficult study of origins , . . 349 Earliest cities of Babylonia . 350 The land of Kengi . . 351 En-shag-kush-ana, patesi . . 352, 353 Lugalzaggisi ..... . 354, 355 Urukagina . . . . 356 Eannatum ..... . . 357 His successors . 358, 359 Lasirab and Manishtusu . , 360 Sargon I and his origin 361, 362 His great career .... 363, 364, 365 Naram-Sin , 366, 367 Ur Bau-and Gudea 368, 369, 370 The civilization of Shirpurla . 371 The favorable location of Ur . , 372 Ur-Gur and Dungi .... . 373, 374, 375 CONTENTS. The kings of Isin . . . . . The third dynasty of Ur . Kingdom of Amnanu . . . . Nur-Adad and Sin-iddin Kudur-Nankhundi . . . . . Chedorlaonier and Eri-Aku End of the kingdom of Larsa Sumerian civilization in early Babylonia The political development CHAPTER II. XIX PAGE 376 . 377 378 . 379 380 . 381 382 . 383 384, 385 The First and Second Dynasties of Babylon. The origin of the city of Babylon Sumu-abi to Apil-Sin . . . , Sin-muballit and Hammurabi Hammurabi rules all Babylonia Chedorlaomer ..... Arioch ; Hammurabi, the statesman The glory of his reign Samsu-iluna ...... End of the first dynasty The second dynasty .... CHAPTER III. The Kassite Dynasty, Conquest of Babylonia by the Kassites Their racial affiliations .... Unsatisfactory knowledge concerning them The first kings of the dynasty Agum-kakrime ...... The titles of Kassite kings Extent of Ascum-kakrime's kins^dom He restores Babylonian gods Lacuna? in King Lists . . • . Beginnings of Assj^ria .... INIitanni ....... . 38 G 387 . 388 389 • 390 391 392, 393 394 . 395 396, 397 . ' . * 399 , 400 401 . 402, 403 . 404 . 405 . 406 . 407, 408 . 409 . 410, 411 XX CONTENTS. Karaindash Kadashman-Bel . . . . . Bumaburiash I Kurigalzu I Bumaburiash II Karakhardash, Kadashman-Khaibe I Kurigalzu II Kadashman-Turgu to Shagarakti-Shuriash Invasion by Tukulti-Ninib Meli-Shipak ...... Marduk-apal-iddin .... CHAPTER IV The Dyxasty of Isin. 41 PAGE 2, 413, 314 . 415 416 . 417 418 . 419 420 . 421 422 . 423 424 Origin of the dynasty ..... Its first kings ....... Nebuchadrezzar I ..... . Marduk-nadin-akhe ...... End of the dynasty 429 425 426 427 428 LIST OF PLATES AND DIAGRAMS. Pietro della Valle's Copy of Cuneiform Signs . page 16 The First Persepolis Inscriptions, copied entire (Sir J. Chardin) . . . .to face page 24 Carreri's Copy of Inscription at Persepolis . page 28 Inscriptions Deciphered by Grotefend to face page 48 Inscription Copied by Flower .... j^age 75 A HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. BOOK i: PROLEGOMENA CHAPTER I. EARLY TRAVELERS AND EARLY DECIPHERERS. Prior to 1820 the only knowledge possessed by the world of the two cities Babylon and Nineveh, and of the empires which they founded and led, was derived from peoples other than their inhab- itants. No single word had come from the deep stillness of the ruins of Babylon, no voice was heard beneath the mounds of Nineveh. It would then have seemed a dream of impossible things to hope that some future day would discover buried libraries in these mounds, filled with books in which these peoples had written not only their history and chronology, but their sci- ence, their operations of building, their manners and customs, their very thoughts and emotions. That the long-lost languages in which these books 2 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. were written should be recovered, that men should I'ead them as readily and as surely as the tongues of which traditional use had never ceased among men — all this would then have seemed impossible indeed. But this and much more has happened. From these long-lost, even forgotten materials the history of Babylonia and Assyria has become known. These are now the chief sources of our knowledge, and before we begin our survey of the long line of the centuries it is well that we should look at the steps by which our sources were secured. The story of the rediscovery of Babylonia and Assyria is really twofold. Two lines of research, pursued separately for a long time, at last formed a union, and from that union has resulted present knowledge. By the one line the ancient sources were rediscovered, by the other men learned how to read them. The first clue which led to the rediscovery of the ancient language of Babylonia and of Assyria was not found in either of these two lands. It was not found by a scholar who set out to search for it. It was not a brilliant discovery made in a day, to become the wonder of ages. It was rather the natural result of a long, tedious, and some- what involved process. It began and long con- tinued to be in the hands of travelers, each learn- ing a little from his predecessors, and then adding a mite as the result of his own observation. It was found in the most unlikely place in Persia, EARLY TRAVELERS AND DECIPHERERS. 3 far from Babylonia and Assyria. The story of its finding is worth the telling, not only because it is necessary to any just appreciation of our present knowledge of Assyria and Babylonia, but because it has its own interest, and is instructive as a his- tory of the progress of knowledge. In Persia, forty miles northeast of Shiraz, once the capital of the kingdom, there is a range of everlasting hills, composed of a marble of dark grey limestone, which bears the name of Mount Rachmet. In front of this ridge, and in a semi- circular hollow, there rises above the plain a vast terracelike platform. Nature built this terrace in part, but man at some time erected a wall in front of it, leveled off the top, and there built great pal- aces and temples. In the Middle Ages this land of Persia became full of intei'est for various rea- sons. It had an important commerce with Europe, and that naturally drew men of trade fi-om Europe into its extensive plateaus, that were reeking with heat in summer, and equally uncomfortable in the bleak cold of winter. The commercial contact of Persia led, also, most naturally to diplomatic inter- course of various kinds with European states, and this intercourse gradually made the land known in some measure to the West. The earliest European, at present known to us, who visited the great terrace at the foot of Mount Rachmet was a wandering friar, Odoricus, or Odoric, by name. He was going overland to Cathaj^, and on the way passed between Yezd and Huz, about 4 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. 1320 A. D. He had no time to look at ruins, and appears hardly to have seen them at all. Yet his record is the first word heard in Europe concerning the ruins at Persepolis : ''I came unto a certaine citie called Comum, which was an huge and mightie city in olde time, con- teyning well nigh fiftie miles in circuite, and hath done in times past great damage unto the Romanes. In it there are stately palaces altogether destitute of inhabitants, notwithstanding it aboundeth with great store of victuals." ' The passage is disappointing. Odoric was a " man of little refinement " * and, though possessed of a desire to wander and see strange sights, cared little for the intellectual or spiritual meaning of great places. It is an oft-recurring statement with ' TJie Second Volume of the Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, etc. By Richard Hakluyt, Preacher, and sometime Student of Christ Church, Oxford. Imprinted at London, anno 1599, p. 54. [Here beginneth the iournall of Frier Odoricus, one of the order of the Minorites, concerning strange things which hee sawe among the Tartars of the East.] The following is the original Latin text : " Ab hac, transiens per civitates et terras, veni ad quamdam civitatem nomine Coprum, quae antiquitatus civitas magna fuit : haec maximum damnum quondam intulit Romae ; eius autem muri bene quadraginta milia- rum sunt capaces. Et in ea sunt palacia adhuc integra, et multis victuali- bus haec abundat." (See Sopra la Vita e i Viaggi del Beato Odorico da Pordenone, Stuni del Chierico Francescano Fr. Teofilo Domenichelli. In Prato, 1881, pp. 156, 157.) The name of the place called Comum, above, is variously written by different authorities: Comerum, Yule; Conium, Venni ; Comum, Utin. ; Coman, Mrs. ; Comerum, Pars. The manuscript readings are very diverse, but I believe with Yule {Cathay and the Way Tliilher, by Col. Henry Yule, C. B., London, Hakluyt Society, 1866, p. 52, note) that the reading to be preferred is Comerum, which is the Camara of Barbaro, the Kinara of Rich, and the Kenare of Mme. Dieulafoy. ' This is the judgment of Colonel Yule \ih. i, p. 8], and everything seems to me to bear it out. EARLY TRAVELERS AND DECIPHERERS. 5 him that he found good " victuals," and with that his simple soul was content. He evidently did not know what place the ancient ruins marked, and that he cared at all does not appear. So simple is his word that men have even doubted whether he ever saw the ruins with his own eyes ; but there is no real reason to doubt that he did. But even though he saw little and said less, his narrative was almost a classic before the invention of printing, and was copied frequently, as the nu- merous manuscripts still in existence show.' Not very long after the invention of printing his story found expression in type. Then it became a call to others to go and see also. It is only a first voice in the dark — this word of Odoric — and long would it be ere another wayfarer should see the same I'elics of the past. In the year 1472 the glorious republic of Ven- ice dispatched an envoy to the Court of Uzun ' Cordier enumerates seventy-nine as still existing in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, etc. See for biographical and critical material : Les Voyages en Asie au XIV' Steele du Bienheureuz Frere Odoric de Pordenone Religieux de Saint-Francis, publics avec une introduction et des notes par Henri Cordier. Paris, 1891. The narrative of Odoricus was first published in 1513 under the title, ^^Odorichus de rebus incognitis, Pesaro [per Girolamo Soncino], 1513, in 4." Only one copy of this extraordinarily rare book is known to exist, and that is in the Reale Biblioteca Palatina de Parme, and I have not seen it. It is described with facsimiles in Cordier, pp. cxvii-cxxiii. A second edition appeared in 1528, at Paris, and the third reprinting was in Ramusio, Navigationi et Viaggi, ii, Venetia, 1583, pp. 245-253. This beau- tiful edition I have seen. The title of the section is *' Viaggio del Beato Odorico da Vdine, dell' ordine de' frati Minori, Delle usanze, costumi, & nature, di diverse nationi & genti del Mondo, & del maritirio di quattro frati dell'ordine predetto, qual patirono tra gl'Infedeli." e HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. Hassan. His name was Josophat Barbaro, and he passed the same way as Odoric, hut saw a little more, which he thus describes : , " Near the town of Camara is seen a circular mountain, which on one side appears to have been cut and made into a terrace six paces high. On the summit of this terrace is a flat space, and around are forty columns, which are called Cil- minar, which means in our tongue Forty Columns, each of which is twenty cubits long, as thick as the embrace of three men ; some of them are ruined ; but, to judge from that which can still be seen, this was formerly a beautiful building. The ter- race is all of one piece of rock, and upon it stand sculj^tured figures of animals as large as giants, and above them is a figure like those by which, in our country, we represent God the Father in- closed in a circle, and holding a ring in his hand ; underneath are other smaller figures. In front is the figure of a man leaning on his bow, which is said to be a figure of Solomon. Below are many others which seem to support those above them, and among these is one who seems to wear on his head a papal miter, and holds up his open hand, apparently with the intention of giving his bene- diction to those below, who look up to him, and seem to stand in a certain expectation of the said benediction. Beyond this there is a tall figure on horseback, apparently that of a strong man ; this they say is Samson, near whom are many other figures, dressed in the French fashion and wearing EARLY TRAVELERS AND DECIPHERERS. 7 long cloaks ; all these figures are in half relief. Two days' journey fi'om this place thei'e is a vil- lage called Thimar, and two days further off an- other village, where there is a tomb in which they say the mother of Solomon was buried. Over this is built an edifice in the form of a chapel, and there are Arabic letters upon it, which say, as we understand from the inhabitants of the place, Mes- ser Suleimen, which means in our tongue Temple of Solomon, and its gate looks toward the east." ' Barbaro had not made much advance upon Odoric, but his account was not altogether fruit- less, though soon to be superseded. When Shah Abbas the Great, king of Persia, began his long and remarkable reign (1586) Persia was a dark land to European eyes. It was he who opened it freely to ambassadors from Europe, all of whom he treated with a magnificent courtesy. The first of these ambassadors to arrive in his kingdom came fi-om the kingdom of Portugal, sent out by Philip III, king of Spain and Portugal. This man was an Augustinian friar, Antonio de Gouvea, who came with messages both of peace and of war. It was his aim to endeavor to carry Christianity among the Persians — a message of peace — but also to induce Abbas to make war on the Osmanli Turks. He was somewhat more suc- cessful in the second than in the first object, 1 Viaggi Fatli da Vinetia, alia Tana, in Persia, in India et in Constanti- 7iopli,coii la descrittione particolare di Citta, Luoghi, Sitti, Costumi, et della Porta del gran Turco & di tutte le intrate, spese, & modo di governo suo, & della ultima Impressa contra Portoghesi. In Venezia, M.D.XLIII, p. 51. 8 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. though he did establish an Augustinian society at the Persian court. After many and sore adven- tures at the hands of sea pirates he again saw his native land, and published an account of his ad- ventures. In this story he tells of a visit to Per- sepolis, and in these terms: "We continued our journey as far as a village called Chelminira, which in their language means Forty Minarets, because that was the number in the tomb of an ancient king which stood there. . . . We went to see the tomb of which I have spoken, and it is my firm belief that the mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her husband was not more notable, though it is held as one of the wonders of the world ; but the mausoleum has been destroyed by time, which seems to have no power against this monument, which has also resisted the efforts of human malice. . . . The place is between two high ridges, and the tomb of which I have made mention is at the foot of the northern ridge. Those who say that Cyrus rebuilt the city of Shiraz, affirm also that he built for himself this famous tomb. There are indications that Ahasuerus, or Artaxerxes, erected it for himself, besides another near it which he made for Queen Vashti ; and this opinion is made more probable by the considera- tion of the short distance from this site to the city of Suzis, or Shushan, in which he generally re- sided. ... At the foot of the ridge began two staircases facing one another, with many steps made of stones of so great a size that it will be EARLY TRAVELERS AND DECIPHERERS. 9 beyond belief when I affirm that some of them, when they were first hewn, were more than twenty-five palms in circumference, ten or twelve broad, and six or eight high ; and of these, there were very many throughout the whole structure, for the building was chiefly composed of them ; and it was no small wonder to consider how they could have been placed one upon the other, par- ticularly in the columns, where the stones were larger than in any other part. That which aston- ished us most was to see that certain small chapels were made of a single stone — doorway, pavement, walls, and roof. . . .The staircases, of which I have spoken, met on a broad landing, from which the whole plain was visible. The walls of the staircases were entirely covered with figures in re- lief, of workmanship so excellent that I doubt whether it could be surpassed ; and by ascending the staircases access was gained to an extensive terrace, on which stood the forty columns which gave their name to the place, each formed, in spite of their great size, of no more than three stones. . . . The bases might be thirty palms round, and on the columns were beautifully carved figures. The porches through which the terrace was entered were very high and the walls very thick ; at each end stood out figures of lions and other fierce ani- mals, carved in relief in the same stone ; so well exe- cuted that they seemed to be endeavoring to terrify the spectators. The likeness of the king was drawn life-size upon the porches and in many other parts. 10 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. " From this place was an ascent to another much higher, where was a chamber excavated in the hillside, which must have been intended to con- tain the king's body, although the natives, imagin- ing that it contained a different treasure, have broken into it, having little respect for the ancient memory of him who constructed it. . . . " The inscriptions — which relate to the founda- tion of the edifice, and, no doubt, also, declare the author of it — although they remain in many parts very distinct, yet there is none that can read them, for they are not in Persian, nor Arabic, nor Arme- nian, nor Hebrew, which are the languages cur- rent in those parts ; and thus all helps to blot out the memory of that which the ambitious king hoped to make eternal. And because the hardness of the material of which it is built still resists the wear of time, the inhabitants of the place, ill treated or irritated by the numbers of visitors who came to see this wonder, set to work to do it as much injury as they could, taking as much trouble perhaps to deface it as the builders had done to erect it. The hard stone has resisted the effect of fire and steel, but not without showing signs of injury." ' ' Relacam, AM | em que se tra- | tarn as gueras e gran | des victorias que alcan- | 90U0 grade Rey da Persia Xa Abbas do grao Tur | co Mahom- etto, & seu filho Amethe : as quais | resultarao das Embaixadas, q per man- dado 1 da Catholica & Real Magesta de del Rey | D. Felippe segundo de Portugal fize- | rao algus Religiosos da ordem dos Eremitas de S. Augusti- | nho a Persia. | Composto pella Padre F. Antonio de Gouvea | Religiose da mesma ordem, EARLY TRAVELERS AND DECIPHERERS. 11 From this narrative it is plain that the militant friar had learned more of the rains than had Odoric or Barbaro. He no longer believes that Solomon had aught to do wdth them, but connects them with fair degree of exactness with the Persian kings. He also is more accurate and explicit con- cerning the inscriptions which he saw. They had already begun to exercise over his mind some little spell — a spell which was soon to hold a large part of Europe beneath its sway. The next ambassador whom Philip III sent out to Shah Abbas was Don Garcia de Sylva y Fig- ueroa, who likewise visited the great ruins. On his return to Isfahan he wrote a letter, in 1619, to the Marquess de Bedmar. It was written origi- nally in Spanish, but immediately was done into Latin and published at Antwerp in 1620. This letter of a brilliant man completely superseded Gouvea's account, and evidently made a profound impression in Europe. Within five years it was Reitor do Col j legio de sancto Augustinho de Goa, & | professor da sagrada Theologia. Impresso em Lisboa per Pedro Crasbeeck. — Anno M.DCXI, fol. 30, recto et seq. Relation | des Grandes | Guerres et | victoires obtenues par | le Roy de Perse | Cha Abbas | contre les Enipereurs de Turquie | Mahomet et Ach- met son fils. | En suite du voyage de quelques | Religieux de I'Ordre des Hermites de S. Augustin envoyez [ en Perse par le Roy Catholique Dom Philippe Second ] Roy de Portugal. Par le P. Fr. Anthoine de Gouvea, Religieux du mesme | Ordre, Recteur du College de S. Augustin de Goa, | Professeur en Theologie. Traduit de I'Original Portugais, imprime a Lisbonne avec Licence | de rinquisition, de I'oridinaire & du Palais. A Rouen, | chez Nicolas Loyselet, pres S, Lo, | derriere le Palais, d rOyselet.— 1646, pp. 18, ff. 12 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. translated into English, so receiving still greater publicity. His description of the ruins of Per- sepolis runs after this fashion : "There are yet remayning most of those huge wilde buildings of the Castle and Palace of Per- sepolis, so much celebrated in the monuments of ancient writers. These frames do the Arabians and Persians in their owne language call Chilmi- nara : which is as much as if you should say in Spanish Quarenta Coliimnas^ or Alcoranas : for so they call those high naiTow round steeples which the Arabians have in their Mesquites. This rare, yea and onely monument of the world (which farre exceedeth all the rest of the World's miracles that we have seen or heard of), sheweth it selfe to them that come to this Citie from the Towne of Xiria, and standeth about a league from the River Ban- damir, in times past called Araxis (not that which parteth Media from the greater Armenia), whereof often mention is made by Q. Curtius, Diodorus, and Plutarch : which Authors doe point us oute the situation of Persepolis, and doe almost lead us unto it by the hand. The largenesse, fairnesse, and long-lasting matter of these Pillars appeareth by the twentie which are yet left of alike fashion ; which with other remaynders of those stately Piles do move admiration in the minde of beholders, and cannot but with much labour and at leisure be layed open. But since it is your Lordships hap to live now at Venice, where you may see some resemblance of the things which I am about to EARLY TRAVELERS AND DECIPHERERS. 13 write of, I will briefly tell you that most of the pictures of men, that, ingraven in marble, doe seele the front, the sides, and statelier parts of this build- ing, are decked with a very comely cloathing, and clad in the same fashion which the Venetian Mag- nificoes goe in : that is Gownes downe to the heeles, with wide sleeves, with round flat caps, their hair spred to the shoulders, and notably long beards. Yee may see in these tables some men sitting with great maiestie in certayne loftier chayres, such as use to bee with us in the Quires and Chapter — Houses of Cathedrall Churches, appointed for the seates of the chiefe Prelates ; the seate being sup- ported with a little foote-stoole neatly made, about a hand high. And, which is very worthy of wonder in so divers dresses of so many men as are ingraven in these tables, none cometh neere the fashion which is at this day, or hath beene these many Ages past, in use through all Asia. For though out of all Antiquitie we can gather no such argu- ments of the cloathing of Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, as we finde many of the Greekes and Romanes; yet it appeareth sufficiently that they used garments of a middle size for length, like the Punike vest used by the Turks and Persians at this day, which they call Aljuba, and these Cavaia : and shashes round about their heads, distinguished yet both by fashion and colour from the Cidaris, which is the Royall Diademe. Yet verily in all this sculpture (which, though it be ancient, yet shineth as neatly as if it were but new-done) you 14 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. can see no picture that is like or in the workman- ship resembleth any other, which the memorie of man could yet attaine to the knowledge of from any part of the World : so that this worke may seeme to excede all Antiquities. Now nothing more confirmeth this than one notable Inscription cut in a Jasper table, with characters still so fresh and faire that one would wonder how it could scape so many Ages without touch of the least blemish. The Letters themselves are neither Chaldean, nor Hebrew, nor Greeke, nor Arabike, nor of any other Nation which was ever found of old, or at this day to be extant. They are all three cornered, but somewhat long, of the forme of a Pyramide, or such a little Obeliske as I have set in the margin (a) ; so that in nothing do they differ from one another but in their placing and situation, yet so conformed that they are wondrous plaine, distinct and perspicuous. What kind of building the whole was (whether Corinthian, lonick or mixt) cannot be gathered from the re- maynder of these mines : which is otherwise in the old broken walls at Rome, by which that may easily be discerned. Notwithstanding the wondrous and artificiall exactness of the worke, the l^eautie and elegancy of it shining out of the proportion and symmetric, doth dazzle the eyes of the be- holders. But nothing amazed me more than the hardnesse and durablenesse of these Marbles and Jaspers; for in many places there are Tables so solide, and so curiously wrought and polished that EARLY TRAVELERS AND DECIPHERERS. li) ye may see your face in them as in a glasse. Be- sides the Authors by rae ah'eadie commended, Arrianus and Justine make special mention of this Palace ; and they report that Alexander the Great (at the instigation of Thais) did burne it downe. But most delicately of all doth Diodorus deliver this storie. "The whole Castle was encompassed with a threefold circle of walls, the greater part whereof hath yielded to the time and weather. There stand also the sepulchres of their kings, placed on the side of that hill, at the foote whereof the Castle itself is built; and the monuments stand just so farre from one another as Diodorus re- porteth. In a worde, all doth so agree with his discourse of it that he that hath scene this and read that cannot possibly be deceived." ' Sylva y Figueroa had evidently more interest in the peoples of the ancient Orient than in their lan- guages. He had not given much attention to the inscriptions which he saw, and the idea of attempt- ing to copy any of these strange characters never seems to have entered his mind. It was a pity that this did not occur to him, for the wide dis- semination of his letter would have earlier intro- ' Garciae Silva Figueroa | Philippi III | Hispaniarum Indiarumq. Regis | Ad Persiae Regem Legati | De | Rebus Persarum ] Epistola. | v Kal. an. M.DC.XIX. Spabani exarata | Ad Marchioueoi Bedmari | iiuper ad Venetos, nunc ad Sereniss. | Austrriae Archiduees, Belgarum Principes | Regium Lega- tum 1 Antverpiae | ex officina Plantiniana. — M.DC.XX, p. 6, ff. English translation in Purchas His PUgrimes. London, 1625. Part ii, 1533-1634. 16 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. cluced Europe to the idea that here was another great field for study. These mysterious signs would even then have attracted attention. But Europe was now soon to learn something of the appear- ance of these strange signs. In the yeai^ 1614-1626 Pietro della Valle trav- ersed a large part of Turkey, Persia, and India. On this journey he wrote " familiar " letters, which were in reality almost treatises upon geography, history, and ethnology, to a friend and physician, Mario Schipano, at Naples. In passing through Persia he visited the ruins of Persepolis, once the capital of ancient Persia. Here he marked that the city was surrounded upon three sides by mountains which broke oif abruptly, leaving smooth precipice surfaces around it. Upon this smooth rock in a number of places he found strange marks, evi- dently made by the hand of man, and intended to mean something. What language this might be or what letters he had no idea. In a letter written October 21, 1621, he described the appearance of these strange signs, and even went so far as to copy down into his letter a few of them : ' y^.Tg_vT>T_ T- V .< KT YT t<> Y<- \ vf -yty. ^yry. ^. rf»y. Yh h -t^y . v.m.-.y:Y-."v.>Mi.\\.ni .ivTiv.i I. 1"^ . ^.^xir.\\. "I . rv. i\i. II. !\ . Ill Km-yry A.fy.yTr.^y.K-.-y^ .<^< xtr. <. lai. Till), XXIV. o ('') GROTEFEND AND RAWLINSON. 49 this is followed by tlie same word, but much in- creased in length, thus : «iT.«.w. i^.iii. W. K'. fir . The supposition was that (a) meant hing while (b) was the plural and meant hing-s, the whole ex- pression signifying Jcing of kings. But further this same word, supposed to be king, occurred again in both inscriptions, namely, in the first line, and in both instances it was followed by the same word, namely : ^ ^ • • • • Here, then, was another expression containing the word king. What could it mean ? Grotefend looked over De Sacy's translations of Sassanian inscrip- tions and found tliat 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 hing. All this looked plausible enough, but it was, after all, only conjecture. It must all be sup- ported by definite facts, and these words must each be separated into its alphabetic constituents and these understood, and supported by clear evi- dence, before anyone would or could believe in 50 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. the decipherment. To this Grotefend now bent every energy. His method was as simple as be- fore. He had made out to his own satisfaction tlie titles "g]-eat king, king of kings." Now, in the Sassanian inscriptions the first word was al- ways 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 inscrip- tions were set up by different kings, for the name in the first was : while in the other it Avas : ««yT.^.T<|::YYT.tT.<<.^n. But to simplify, or to complicate the matter, as one wall, this name wdth which I begins appears in n in the third line, but changed somewhat in its ending, so that it stands thus : (/) n. m. ^T.K-rT^ . pears 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. Per- haps 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 fonn of which Grotefend followed, and thus made out the name : G O SH T ASP 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 Grote- fend's own mind the whole case seemed clear and indisputable, for the same characters occurred in 54 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. all three names, and tlms each supported the other. At this time the Persian alphabet was sup- posed 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. He now felt himself able to translate these in- scriptions in part, thus: I. Darius, the mighty king, king of kings . . . son of Hystaspes. II. Xerxes, the mighty king, king of kings . . . son of Darius, the king. This was an epoch-making result, and even Gro- tefend with all his enthusiasm and with all the confidence of genius, did not fully realize it. This much he was anxious to get before the learned world for acceptance, or perhaps for criticism. That should have been easy indeed, but, in fact, it was not easy. The Gottingen Academy of Sciences refused absolutely to believe in his methods or his results, and would not take the risk of disgracing itself by publishing Grotefend's i:)aper, describing his work, in its transactions.' He was not an orientalist at all l^y training or experience, and the learned men of Gottingen who were oriental- ' This refusal is the more noticeable as the Academy had, in the very- beginning, announced that Grotefend "had been led by certain historical presuppositions, and also by the analogy of the Sassanian inscriptions, to discover in the shorter cuneiform inscriptions of Persepolis, written in the first and simplest of the three forms of character, which he had examined with this purpose in view, the names and titles of Darius and Xerxes." — Gi}tfhif/ischc Gelehrte An~.eige7i.,^(i])iQmhcv 18, 1802 (Xo. 149). GROTEFEND AND RAWLINSON. 55 ists asked whether " any good thing could come out of Nazareth," that is, whether a man who was not an orientalist could possibly offer a contribu- tion of value to oriental learning. The case was a sad one for the patient, plodding decipherer, for it was not easy to see how he could gain any pub- licity for his work. At this juncture a personal friend, A. H. L. Heeren, who was about to pub lish a book on the ancient world,' offered to give space in the appendix to Grotefend for the pur- pose 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. Those who doubted the whole scheme were later to receive a severe setback, and that from ' IJeen iiber die Politik, den Verkehr und den Handel der vornehmsten Volker der alien Welt, von A. H. L. Heeren. 3 vols. Gottingen, 1815. The paper by Grotefend is printed in vol. i, pp. 563, ff., under the title Ueber die Erklarung der Keilschriften, und besonders der Inschriften von Persepolis. Heeren's book was translated into English with the title, Historical Researches into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Principal Nations of Anti(fdtii, by A. H. L. Heeren. Oxford, 1833. In this edition Grote- fend's essay appears in vol. ii, pp. 313, ff., accompanied by plates better executed than those of the German edition. 56 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. an unexpected source. It will be remembered that while the Persepolis inscriptions were still in the copying stage a beautiful vase had come to Paris which contained some Egyptian hiero- glyphics, and also some signs like those found at Pei-sepolis. After the publication of Grotefend's work in Heeren's book the Abbe Saint-Martin, in Paris, devoted much thought and time to its crit- icism and study. At this same time Champollion was engaged in the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. He suggested to the abbe that they should try to decipher together the marks upon the vase. When this was attempted the abbe found that the name on the vase in cunei- form characters should be transliterated thus : CH. SH. A. R. SH. A' and this was remarkably confirmed by the finding of the same name, according to Champollion, in the Egyptian signs. This was a small matter in some ways, but it increased the faith of many in the method and results of Grotefend. Meanwhile Grotefend himself was continuing his effoi'ts to get beyond these few words and de- cipher a whole inscription. At this stage, how- ever, entirely different traits of mind were needed, and a completely changed mental furnishing. In the preliminaiy work the type of mind which Gi'otefend possessed was admirably adapted to ' Nouvelles observations sur les inscriptions de Persepolis, par M. Saint- Martin. {Memoires de VAcademie Royale des hiscrip. et Btlles-Lettres. Tome xii, part 2, 1839, pp. 113, ff.) This paper was read before the Academy, December 20, 1822. GROTEFEND AND RAWLINSON. 57 the work to be done. The mental training de- rived from long study of the classics of Greek and Latin was likewise of constant service. He had, however, now reached the point where exten- sive and definite knowledge of the oriental lan- guages was imperatively necessary. In order to secure words of ancient Persian he must know words in the related oriental languages or in those other languages which, though not related, had been used in or about the same territory, and so might have borrowed words from old Persian. He must also know the oriental spirit, have a feeling for oriental life, be able to understand in advance just about what an oriental was likely to say. None of these possessions were his. His later work was therefore largely abortive. He tried to translate entire inscriptions, and failed almost com- pletely, though he devoted much time for all the rest of his life to this matter, without, however, abandoning his real field of classical literature. However unsuccessful the later efforts of Grote- fend 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 Baby- lonia were likewise rediscovered. Much of what 58 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. we know of ancient Persia came from tliem ; almost all that we know of Assyria and Babylonia was derived from tkem. 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 in- scriptions 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 ' R. Rask, Ueher das Alter und die Echtheit der Zend Sprache und des Zend-Avesta iind Herstelhmg des Zend- Alphabets nebsf einer Uebersicht der gesammten Sprachstammes; uebersetzt von Fried. Heinrich von der Hagen. Berlin, 1826, p. 28. * Memoire sur deux inscriptions cunelformes trouvees pres d^Hamadan, par M. l^ugene Burnouf, Pari?, 1836. GROTEFEND AND RAWLINSON. 59 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 kno^vledge 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-Kustam 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. In- duced 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 iden- tical.' He had, however, made, in one respect at ' Some believe that Lassen borrowed these results from Burnouf s com- munications to him, and therefore count him dishonest in making no ac- knowledgment. 60 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. 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 gPED, THTGUS, KTPTUK, FRA- ISJM. This situation led Lassen to a very im- portant 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 " (see second sign in " f," below) was only used at the beginning of a word, or before a conso- nant, 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 H the middle word in line three should be so read : D A Ra Ya Va H U S GROTEFEND AND RAWLINSON. 61 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 inscrip- tions 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, in- cluding those which Niebuhr and his predecessors had copied. These were discovered in the papers of Kich, 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 worth- ily his fellow-countryman Mebuhr. Westergaard had again gone over the old ground at Persepolis and had there recopied and carefully collated all the well-known inscriptions.' Li this he had not ' Lassen, Die Alpersischeii Keilinschrifteii nach Herrn N. L. Wester- guard's MittheUungen. Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde dcs Morgenlandes. Band v'i. Bonn, 1845. See especially pngcs 1—3. 62 HISTOEY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. done a useless task, for only by oft-repeated copying and comparing could the finally definite and per- fect text be attained, without which the decipher- ment 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 decipher- ment. 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 Grermany, whose work, however, made no veiy deep impression on the general movement. In the work of decipherment thus far the chief positions had been held by Grotefend and Bur- nouf, 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 ' Bcilrage zur Erkliirung der Persischen Keilimchriften, vou Adolf Holz- niann. Erstes Heft. Carlsruhe, 1845. GROTEFEND AND RAWLINSON. 63 achieved by a mau of different nationality and divei*se 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 de- cipherment 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 vernacu- lars. This training hardly seemed likely to pro- duce a man for the work of deciphering an un- known language. It was just such training as had produced men like the earlier travelers who had made the first copies of the inscriptions at Persep- olis. It was, however, not the kind of education which Grotefend, Burnouf, and Lassen had re- ceived. In 1833 the young Rawlinson went to Persia, there to work with other British oiScers 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 Rawlin- son was attracted by some inscriptions. The fii-st that roused an interest in him were those at Hama- 64 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. dan, which he copied with great care. This was in the year 1835, at a time when a number of Eu- ropean scholars were earnestly trying to decipher the inscriptions from Persepolis. Of all this eager work Kawlinson knew comparatively little. It is impossible now to determine exactly when he first secured knowledge of Grotefend's work, for Nor- ris, 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 independ- ently 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 under- stood 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 inter, line the t"wo inscriptions (or, rather, the Persian columns of the two inscriptions, for as the com- ' On Rawlinson's life, and also on his work as a decipherer, see now A Memoir of Major- General Sir Henri/ Creswicke Rmelinson, by George Rawlinson. London, 1898. The notice of Rawlinson's work here given was written before the appearance of this memoir. GROTEFEND AND RAWLINSON. 65 partments exhibiting the iuscriptiou in the Pei'sian language occupied the principal place in the tab- lets, 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 rea- sonable 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 in- scriptions; for the group which occupied the sec- ond 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 com- memorated, corresponded with the group which oc- cupied 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 indi- cate a genealogical succession. The natural infer- ence 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 suc- cession, proved to answer in all respects satisfac- torily and were, in fact, the true identifications." ' In the autumn of 1836, while at Teheran, Raw- ' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, x, pp. 5, 6. 66 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. linson first secured an acquaintance witli 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 farther than they, and with greater probability. Rawlinson's next work was the copying of the great inscription of Darius on the rocks at Behis- tun. This was a task of immense difficulty, car- ried 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 be- come more skilled in the strange character. In that year he forwarded to the Royal Asiatic So- ciety 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 Kawlinson had accom- j)lished this without a knowledge of the related languages, except for what he could extract from the researches of Anquetil-Duperron. In the au- tumn 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 > See Atheuceum, November S, 1884, No. 2976, p. 593. GROTEFEND AND RAWLINSON. 67 were of great assistance to liim, as tliey already had been to Burnouf and Lassen. AVith the ad- vantage of almost all that European scholars had done, Rawlinson was now able to make rapid i:)rog- ress, 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 Pei^epolis, 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 mem- oir, and expected to j)ublish it in the spring of 1840. Just at this juncture he was suddenly removed from Baghdad and sent to Afghanistan as politi- cal 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 dis- tinction, and in administration as well, that his oriental studies had to be given up entirely. In December, 1843, he was returned to Bagh- 68 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. clad, the troubles in Afglianistan being for tlie time ended, and at once resumed his investiga- tions. Here he obtained the fresh copies and cor- rections of the Persepolitan inscriptions which Wes- tergaard 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 pub- lished, in 1846, in the Joiirncd of the Moyal Asiatic Society, his memoir, or series of memoirs, on the an- cient 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 in- telligible and connected translation of a long in- scription. 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, ' George Rawlinson has attached himself to the view that Sir Henry Raw- linson had almost completed the work of decipherment of the Old Persian alphabet before he learned an3'thing of the work of Grotefend. He says : "Up to this time [end of 1836] he had no knowledge at all of the antece- dent or contemporary labors of continental scholars, but had worked out his conclusions entirely from his own observation and reasoning " {Memoir, p. 309). This view rests upon the decipherer's own recollections of his work. It is, however, almost certain that Sir Henry Rawlinson forgot just when he first learned of Grotefend's work, and thought that he was independent, when in reality he was assisted by Grotefend, Burnouf, and Lassen. In 1884 he carried on a spirited controversy with Professor F. Max Miiller concerning the right of priority of discovery. In one of his letters he GROTEFEND AND RAWLINSON. 69 received from Norris, Grotefend's results, tliough not at the very beginning, and he was later siip- j^lied 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 allow- ance is made for these influences, his fame is not diminished nor the extent of his services in the de- cipherment curtailed. His method was settled early and before he knew of Lassen's woi'k. 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 Jan- uary, 1847, the Dublin University Magazine con- tained an unsigned article with the taking title, " Some Passages of the Life of King Darius," the opening sentences of which were as follows : speaks thus of the matter : " Now, for my own part, I take leave to say that, though I worked independently, and with some success, in my early attempts to decipher the Persian cuneiform inscriptions (from 1835 to 1839), still I never pretended to claim priority of discovery over Grotefend, Burnouf, and Lassen. ... As I was in pretty active correspondence with Burnouf and Lassen from 1837 to 1839 on the values of the cuneiform characters, it is impossible to say by whom each individual letter became identified" {Athencenm^ November 8, 1884, p. 593). This letter makes it sufficiently plain that Rawlinson himself when he carefully considered the matter did not make so great a claim for himself as does his brother in the admirable memoir. His fame is secure, and needs not to be estab- lished by any attempt to prove that he was wholly independent of Euro- pean scholars in all his earlier work. 70 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. "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 appear- ance, we do not hesitate to say that a more inter- esting — 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 Be- histun the inscription of Darius and how he had successfully deci^Dhered it. As the paper j)roceeds, the anonymous writer goes beyond the work of Rawlinson to tell of what had been done in Euroj)e by Grotefend and others, displaying in every sen- tence the most exhaustive acquaintance with the whole history of the various attempts at decipher- ment. Then he falls into courteous and gentle but incisive criticism of some of Major Rawlinson's readings or translations, and herein displays a mas- tery 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 j)aper as that, and he was a quiet country rector at Killy- leagh. County Down, the Rev. Edward Hincks.* ^Dublin JJ)dversiiy Magazine, Dublin, 1847, p. 14. * Apart from the internal evidence there is now no doubt that this paper was written by Hincks, though published anonymously. See Adler, Pro- ceediuffs of the American Oriental Society, October, 1888, p. civ; and com- pare Stanley Lane Toole, Dictionary of National Biography, xxvi, p. 430 GROTEFEND AND RAWLINSON. 71 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 set- tled in 1825 at Killyleagh, to spend the remain- der of his life. His first contributions to human learning appear to have been in mathematics, but he early began to devote himself to oriental lan- guages, publishing in 1832 a Hebrew grammar. He was one of the pioneers of Egyptian deciph- erment, and his contributions to that great work are acknowledged now to be of the highest rank. Unhappily his life has never been worthily writ- ten, and it is impossible to determine just when he first began to study the inscriptions of Persepolis. It is, however, clear that, independently of Rawlin- son, he arrived at the meaning of a large number of signs, and had among his papers, before Rawlin- son's work appeared, translations of some of the Persepolitau 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 yeai-. In this paper Hincks shows an acquaintance with the efforts at decipherment which had been made by AVestergaard and Las- sen, but he seems not to have seen the works of the other continental decipherers. He had much surpassed these two without the advan- tage which they enjoyed of more complete litera- ture. 72 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. In the work of Hincks the Persepolitan iuscrip' tions had been now for the third time independ- ently 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 his- torical material which the inscriptions had pro- vided. 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 ]-ead. 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 Per- sian, and there was, therefore, little incitement to their study. Before the end of this period, how- ever, there were beginning to be hints that these other two languages were important, and that one GROTEFEND AND RAWLINSON. 73 of them was the representative of a great people who possessed an extensive literature. The proofs that this was indeed true were now slowly begin- ning 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 Pei-sian 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 be- fore, 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 de- cipherment. We turn now to a second story, the story of exploration. 74 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. EXCURSUS. THE ROMANTIC HISTORY OP FLOWER'S COPIES OP INSCRIPTIONS. The first characters from Persepolis which were published in England appeared in the Philosoph- ical Transactions for June, 1693, and their history was so peculiar and of such considerable impor- tance 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, mth all its solecisms, runs thus : " Sir, I here send you some Fragments of Papers put into my hands by a very good Friend, relat- lating to antique and obscure Inscriptions, w" 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 Ohilmenar, pursuant to the third Enquiry for Persia, mentioned in the Philosophical Tran- actions, pag. 420, viz., whether there being al- ready good Descriptions in words of the Excellent Pictures and Basse Relieves that are about Per- sepolis 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 [sicl pictured r ".-». >ylon, and neere Euphrates; whereas this i? ncorer EARLY EXPLORERS IN BABYLONIA. 91 this most ancient monument be half a yard thicke and three quarters of a yard long, being dried in the Sunne only, and betweene every course of brickes there lieth a course of mattes made of canes, which remaine sounde and not perished, as though they had beene layed within one yeere. The citie of New Babylon joyneth upon the aforesaid desert where the Olde citie was, and the river of Tygris runneth close under the wall, and they may if they will open a sluce, and let the water of the same mnne round about the towne. It is about two English miles in compasse, and the inhabitants generally speake three languages, to wit, the Persian, Arabian, and Turkish tongues : the people are of the Spanyards complexion : and the women generalie weare in one of the gristles of their noses a ring like a wedding ring, but somewhat greater, with a pearle and a Turkish stone set therein, and this they doe be they never so poore." ' The old confusion between Baghdad and Baby- lon plainly exists in the mind of Eldred, but apart from that error his words have a magical ring in them, and might well induce others to set out to see such sights. He appears not to have seen the Tigris." — Purchas his Pilgrimage, 1626, p. 50 (folio edition), quoted in Narrative of a Journey to the Site of Babylon, etc., by the late C'laudius James Rich, edited by his widow. London, 1839, p. 321. ' The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the E/nglish Natimi. By Richard Hakluyt, Master o^" Artes, and Student sometime of Christ-Church in Oxford. Imprinted at London by George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, Deputies to Christopher Baker, Printer to the Queen's most excellent Majestic. 1589, p. 232. 92 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. ruins of Nineveh at all, but another Eno^lishman, who sailed from Venice in 1599, was more fortunate and also more romantic. There is more of eloquence in Anthony Shirley (or Sherley), who thus wrote of both cities : " I will speake""of Babylon ; not to the intent to tell stories, either of the huge mines of the first Towne or the splendour of the second, but — because nothing doth impose anything in man's nature more than example — to shew the truth of God's word, whose vengeances, threatened by His Prophets, are truely succeeded in all those parts. ..." " All the ground on which Babylon was spred is left now desolate; nothing standing in that Peninsula between the Euphrates and the Tigris, but only part, and that a small part, of the greate Tower, which God hath suffered to stand (if man may speake so confidently of His greate imj^ene- trable counsels) for an eternal testimony of His work in the confusion of Man's pride, and that Arke of Nebuchadnezzar for as perpetual a mem- ory of his greate idolatry and condigne punish- ment." " Nineve, that which God Himself calleth That greate Citie, hath not one stone standing which may give memory of the being of a towne. One English mile from it is a place called Mosul, a ' Sir Anthony Sherley, Hh Relation of H'ls Travels hito Persia. London, 1613, p. 21. "- Ibid. EAELY EXPLORERS IN BABYLONIA. 93 small thing, rather to be a witnesse of the other's mightinesse and God's judgment than of any fashion of magnificence in it selfe." ' In these words is sounded for the first time the note which would bring eager explorers to these mounds. The former travelers had looked curi- ously upon these mounds and then passed on; this man saw in them facts which illustrated the Hebrew prophets. In a later day expeditions would go out from England for the very purpose of seeking in them books which might confirm or illustrate the history and the prophecy of the He- brew people. The real force behind the large contributions of money for these explorations was this desire to know anything that had any possi- ble bearing on the scriptures of the Old Testa- ment. Anthony Shirley did not see that day, but he belonged to it in spirit. In all these notices of passing travelers ignorance was mingled with credulity, and definite knowl- edge was wanting. The most that had been ac- complished was the perpetuation and the stimula- tion of interest in these cities. The very small amount of progress that had been made is indi- cated by the publication in 1596, at Antwerp, of the gre at Geographical Treasury of Ortelius,' an ' Ibid. * Ahrahami Ortellii Antverpiani Thesauriis Geographicus Recognitiis et Audus. Antwerp, Plantin, 1596. The copy which the writer used in the Bodleian Library had belonged to Joseph Scaliger, and contained manu- script notes of his. On Nineveh he had nothing to add, and on Babylon merely wrote in the margins some Arabic words which had been transliter- ated in the text of Ortelius. lU HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. alphabetic list of places, with such descriptive geo- graphical facts added as were then known. Or- telius states that certain writers identified Nineveh with Mosul, but as he had no definite information, he had to let the matter rest at that. Of Babylon even less was known. All the authorities quoted by Ortelius, except Benjamin of Tudela, identity- Babylon with Baghdad, and that position he ac- cepts. It is clear from this that there was need for more travelers who should see, and understand as well what they saw. A beginning is made by an English traveler, John Cartwright, whose tone is very similar to that of Sherley, though he makes more of a con- tribution to the knowledge of the subject : " Having passed over this river [the Choaspes] we set forward toward Mosul, a very antient towne in this countrey, sixe dayes journey from Valdac, and so pitched on the bankes of the river Tigris. Here in these plaines of Assiria, and on the bankes of the Tigris, and in the re- gion of Eden, was Ninevie built by Nimrod, but finished by Ninus. It is agreed by all prophane writers, and confirmed by the Scriptures that this citty exceeded all other citties in circuit, and an- swerable magnificence. For it seemes by the ruin- ous foundation (which I thoroughly viewed) that it was built with four sides, but not equall or square ; for the two longer sides had each of them (as we gesse) an hundredth and fifty fur- longs, the two shorter sides, ninty furlongs, which EARLY EXPLORERS IN BABYLONIA. 95 amounteth to foiire hundred and eighty furlongs of ground, which makes thi'ee score miles, account- ing eight furlongs to an Italian mile. The walls whereof were an hundredth foote upright, and had such a breadth, as three Chariots might passe on the rampire in front : these walls were garnished with a thousand and five hundreth towers, which gave exceeding beauty to the rest, and a strength no lesse admirable for the nature of those times." ' After these descriptions of the past and present of Nineveh, Cartwright supplied some extracts from its history and then concluded thus : "Finally, that this city was farre greater than Babilon, being the Lady of the East, the Queene of Nations, and the riches of the world, hauing more people within her wals, than are now in some one kingdome : but now it is destroyed (as God foi'e- told it should be by the Chaldseans) being nothing else, then (sic) a sepulture of her self, a litle towne of small trade, where the Patriarch of the Nesto- rians keeps his seate, at the deuotion of the Turkes. Sundry times had we conference with this Patri- arch : and among many other speeches which past from him, he wished us that before we departed, to see the Hand of Eden, but twelue miles up the riuer, which he affirmed was undovhtedly a part of Paradise^ Keen as Cartwright was after historical and leg- endary material, he continued the error of confusion ' The Preacher's Travels, penned by I. C. (preface signed lohn Cartwright). London, 1611, pp. 89, 90. 96 HISTOEY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. of Baghdad and Babylon. His descriptions, how- ever, contained some new matter : " Two places of great antiquity did we thoroughly view in the country : the one was the mines of the old tower of Babely (as the inhabitants hold unto this day) built by Nymrod, the nephew of Cham, Noahs Sonne. . . . "And now at this day that which remayneth, is called, the remnant of the tower of Babel : there standing as much, as is a quarter of mile in com- passe, and as high as the stone-worke of Paules steeple in London. It was built of burnt bricke cimented and Joyned with bituminous mortar, to the end, that it should not receiue any cleft in the same. The brickes are three quarters of a yard in length, and a quarter in thicknesse, and between euery course of brickes, there lyeth a course of mats made of Canes and Palme-tree leaves, so fresh, as if they had beene layd within one yeere. "The other place remarkable is, the mines of old Babilon, because it was the first citie, which was built after the Floud. . . . This city was built upon the riuer Euphrates, as we found by experi- ence, spending two dayes journey and better, on the ruines thereof. " Amongst the other stately buildings was the temple of Bel, erected by Semiramis in the middle of this citie. . . . Some do thinke, that the ruines of Nimrods tower, is but the foundation of this temple of Bel, & that therefore many trauellers haue bin deceiued, who suppose they haue scene EARLY EXPLORERS IN BABYLONIA. 97 a part of tliat tower which Nimrod biiilded. But who can tell whether it be the one or the other ? It may be that confused Chaos which we saw was the mines of both, the Temple of Bel being founded on that of Nimrod." ' There are not wanting indications in this narra- tive that Cartwright knew the description of Sher- ley, whom he almost seems to quote in the com- parison with St. Paul's Cathedral. The visiting of Babylon and Nineveh was now becoming as much of an international matter as was the observing of the ruins of Persepolis at a slightly later time. Gasparo Balbi/ a Venetian, Alexander Hamilton, an Englishman, and Don Gar- cia de Silva y Figueroa, a Spaniard, followed soon after Cartwright, but made no advance in their in- vestigations beyond that which had been seen by their predecessors. Following these came the great traveler, Pietro della Valle, who has received so much attention already in a former narrative con- cerning Persepolis.' He made the same mistake of confusing Baghdad with ancient Babylon, but he visited Hillah, which probably few of his prede- cessors had done. He also visited the great mound near Hillah, called Babil by the natives. This, Pie- tro della Valle believed, was the ruin of the Tower of Babel. This mound he had sketched by an art- ist, and from it he collected some bricks, which he ' IbU.^ pp. 99, 100. ^Viaggio nelle Indie Orientali, Venise, 1590. See also Recueil des Voy- tiges aux Indes Orientales, par les fr^res de Bry. Francfort, 1660L ^Seep. 16. 98 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. afterward took back to Kome. One of these was presented to Athanasius Kircher, the Jesuit, who wrote a learned treatise on the Tower of Babel. Kircher believed that this brick had formed part of the original Tower of Babel, wrecked by the hand of God, a silent monitor from the great age of the dispersion of tongues. He placed it in his museum, and it is still preserved. This is probably the very first Babylonian antiquity which came into Europe, and must always have a great interest on that ac- count. Though it was not what Pietro della Valle and Kircher supposed, it was, nevertheless, a brick from the glorious period of Babylonian history, and to the world of letters had a meaning of tre- mendous import. It was the harbinger of great stores of tablets and of building bricks which were soon to flow from that land. Far beyond the dreams of the mediaeval student of the Tower of Babel were this first brick and those which were to follow, to cany the thoughts of men. After these men of the world, others bent on errands of religion passed up and down the valley — Augustinians, Jesuits, Carmelites, and Francis- cans — some of whom visited the sites covered with ruins, while others were content to report what they had heard. They were generally impressed with the thought that they were in lands where God had signally manifested his displeasure with the sons of men, but none of them appear to have felt any quickening of imagination at the thought of the great deeds of human history which had EARLY EXPLORERS IN BABYLONIA. 99 there been enacted. They naturally knew no more of the meaning of the mounds than did those who had preceded them. So the end of the seventeenth century had come, and no man knew more of the history of Babylon or of Nineveh than could be gathered out of the pages of the Greeks or the Latins, or from the stirring words of the Old Testament. The day of the traveler who went and saw, and no more, was now nearly over, and the day of the scientific ex- plorer was rapidly hastening on. Before men should be led to dig up these great mounds they must be roused to interest in them, and that the traveler had done in some measure. The age of the explorer and of the decipherer had come, and the intellectual quickening of the times manifested itself in a thorough study of the mounds of Nine- veh and Babylon. 100 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. CHAPTER IV. EXPLORATIONS IN ASSTEIA AND BABYLONIA, 1734-1820. The man who began the new age of exploration was not himself an explorer, nor were several of his immediate successors. He was, however, a man of scientific spirit, and in that differed from the men who had gone before him. He was not seekiDg marvels, nor anxiously inquiring for evi- dences of strange dealings in dark days. He was a student of geography and history, and went into the Orient specially charged to study them. Jean Otter, member of the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, and afterward pro- fessor of Arabic at the College de France, spent ten years in western Asia, being sent thither for the purpose of study by the Comte de Maurepas. His notice of the city of Nineveh is very different indeed from all that preceded it. Its tone of criticism, of sifting out the false from the true, is the tone of the new age that had now begun : "Abulfeda [the Arabian Geographer] says that Nineveh was on the eastern bank of the Tigris, opposite the modern Mosul ; either he must have been mistaken, or the inhabitants of the district are greatly in error, for the latter place Nineveh on the western bank of the Tigris, on the spot which they call Eski-Mosul. If we attempt to EXPLORATIONS, 1734-1820. 101 conciliate the two opinions by supposing that Nineveh was built on both sides of the river, nothing is gained, for Eski-Mosul is seven or eight leagues higher up the stream. One point seems to favor the belief of Abulfeda, and that is, that opposite Mosul there is a place called Tell-i-Tou- bah — that is to say, the Hill of Repentance — where, they say, the Ninevites put on sackcloth and ashes to turn away the wrath of God." ' Otter also visited the mounds at Hillah, and, with a better know^ledge of the Arabian geog- raphers than any of his predecessors, located the ancient city of Babylon near Hillah. The true location of the city even he did not make out, but the site was almost determined. A scientifically trained scholar, as Otter was, had not found it, but the thoughts of men were at least pointed away from the identification with Baghdad. After Otter the land of Babylonia was visited by a Carmelite missionary. Father Emmanuel de Saint Albert. He saw the ruins at Hillah and made a very important report upon them to the Duke of Orleans. His account was not published, but in manuscript form came into the hands of D'Anville, who presented to the Academy of Inscriptions at Paris a paper on the site of Babylon. This paper was based, in its conclusive portions, upon the de- scription of southern Babylonia given by Pietro della Valle, and especially that now offered by the ' Voyage en Turqiiie et en Perse, par M. Otter, de TAcademie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris. 1748, pp. 133, 134. 102 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. Carmelite missionary. The words of the latter differ in important respects from the descriptions of any travelers who had preceded him. He says : " Before reaching Hillah a hill is visible which has been formed by the ruins of some great build- ing. It may be between two and three miles in circumference. I brought away from it some S(juare bricks, on which were writing in certain un- known characters. Opposite this hill, and distant two leagues, another similar hill is visible, between two reaches of the river at an equal distance. . . . We went to the opposite hill, which I have already mentioned ; this one is in Arabia, about an hour's distance from the Euphrates, and the other is in Mesopotamia, at the same distance from the Eu- phrates, and both exactly opposite to each other. I found it very like the other, and I brought away some square bricks, which had the same im- pressions as the first-mentioned ones. I remarked upon this hill a fragment of thick wall, still stand- ing on the summit, which, from a distance, looked like a large tower. A similar mass was lying overturned beside it ; and the cement was so solid that it was quite impossible to detach one brick whole. Both masses seemed as if they had been vitrified, Avhich made me conclude that these ruins were of the highest antiquity. Many people in- sist that this latter hill is the remains of the real Babylon ; but I know not what they will make of the other, M'liich is opposite and exactly like EXPLORATIONS, 1734-1820. 103 this one. The people of the country related to me a thousand foolish stories about these two mounds ; and the Jews call the latter the prison of Nebuchadnezzar."* Unlike the travelers who had preceded him, this missionary cared nothing for the marvelous, and would have none of the stories of the natives. He had, however, so completely and accurately described these ruins that the work of D'Anville was comparatively easy. He decided that this was really Babylon, and that Baghdad was not its modern representative. The final word of D'Anville is interesting, and opens up the new era of study of this part of the Orient : "The written characters which, as Father Emmanuel says in his report, are impressed upon the bricks which remain of buildings so ancient that they may have foimed part of the original Babylon would be for scholars who wish to pene- trate into the most remote antiquity an entirely new matter of meditation and study." ' These words were written in 1755, iu the very middle of the eighteenth century. They show how the study of the city of Babylon lagged be- hind the investigation of the cities of Persia. At this very time, as we have already seen, Europe was stirring with interest in the great Achsemen- ian dynasty, and not only was the site of Per- * Memoire siir la Positioji de Babylone, par M. d'Anville. Memoires des Inscriptions et des Belles-Lettres, t. xxviii, p. 256, annee 1755 [published 1761]. ' Comp. trans. In Evetts, jhid.y p. 44. 104 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. sepolis well known, its inscriptions had been sev- eral times coj)ied, and men were eagerly trying to decipher them. It was not yet time to turn from the study of Persepolis to the study of Babylon, but the hour was rapidly hastening on. Father Emmanuel and his skillful interpreter before the Academy had done much to bring the hour nearer. In December, 1765, Carsten Niebuhr, whose name has already filled a large place in this story in connection with the ruins of Persepolis, visited Hillah. He was absolutely certain in his own mind that these ruins belonged to the city of Babylon.' He was deeply impressed by their vast size, but still more by the evidences of a high state of civilization which they indicated. He found lying upon the ground and about the great mounds numerous bricks covered with inscriptions. Niebuhr could not read a line upon them, and no man living could have done so ; but that they ex- isted, and that the writing was the writing of the ancient Babylonians, was now well known in Europe. Europe had, however, entirely failed to grasp the meaning of these important facts. Eu- I'ope believed that a people who could only write upon clay must have been a people in a low state of civilization indeed, and must have possessed but a small literature. Niebuhr quotes from Bryant ' " Dass Babylon in der Gegend von Helle [Hillah] gelegen habe, daran ist gar kein Zweifel." — Reisebcschrelbung nach Arabien nnd andern utn- liegenden Landern. Kopenhagen, 17*78, ii, p. 28*7. EXPLORATIONS, 1734-1820. 105 these words, and they were fairly representative of the general opinion entertained in Europe : " I cannot help forming a judgment of the learning of a people from the materials with which it is expedited and carried on, and I should think that literature must have been very scanty, or none at all, where the means above mentioned were ap- plied." To Niebuhr sucli reasoning appeared to be folly. To his mind tlie presence of these in- scribed bricks was evidence of a very high state of civilization.* He lamented that he could not remain longer at the site, the more thoroughly to study its ruins, and calls earnestly for others to continue the work which he had to leave un- finished. Niebuhr also visited the mounds near the Tigris and opposite the city of Mosul. Here also he was as clear and cogent in his reasoning as he had been at Hillah. The site of Nineveh he identified with- out difficulty,' but it appears to have impressed him much less than the more ancient, and the greater, mother city of Babylon. The hope and wish of Niebuhr that others would soon follow him to carry on researches at Babylon were soon gratified. In 1781, on July 6, M. de Beauchamp sailed away from Marseilles to carry on astronomical observations at Baghdad and to make historical and geographical studies ' " Man kann daraus vielraehr deu Schluss machen, dass die Babylonier es in der Schreibkunst und den Wissenschaften schon sehr weit gebracht haben miissen. — Ibid., pp. 290, 291. » Ibid., p. 353. 9 106 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. in the neighborhood. He visited Hillah, and con- tributed further to its exact localization. His knowledge of the languages and the archaeology both of the past and the present of the Orient was not equal to that of Niebuhr, and he therefore made curious mistakes concerning the names which the Arabs had given to certain portions of the mounds, but withal he marks a fresh step of prog- ress. The mound which had now long been known to travelers as the mound of Babel he now desig- nates under the name of Makloube. For the first time he directs attention to a second mound close by the first, which he considers the site of Baby- lon; it is the mound called El-Kasr by the Arabs. Of the mound at Hillah he says: "Here are found those large and thick bricks, imprinted with unknown characters, specimens of which I have presented to Abbe Bartholomy.' ... I was in- formed by the master mason employed to dig for bricks that the places from which he procured them were large, thick walls, and sometimes chambers. He has frequently found earthen ves- sels, engraved marbles, and, about eight years ago, a statue as large as life, which he threw amongst the rubbish. On one wall of a chamber he found the figures of a cow and of the sun and moon formed of varnished bricks. Some idols of clay are found representing human figures. I ' Afterward published in beautiful copies by Millin, Monuments Antiqiies inedits. Paris, 1802, vol. ii, pp. 263, ff. EXPLORATIONS, 1734-1820. 107 found one brick on wliich was a lion, and on others a half moon in relief. The bricks are ce- mented with bitumen, except in one place, which is well preserved, where they are united by a very thin stratum of white cement, which appears to be made of lime and sand." "Most of the bricks found at Makloube have writing on them ; but it does not appear that it was meant to be read, for it is as common on bricks buried in the walls as on those on the out- side. . . . " The master mason led me along a valley which he dug out a long while ago to get at the bricks of a wall, that, from the marks he showed me, I guess to have been sixty feet thick. It ran per- pendicularly to the bed of the river, and was probably the wall of the city. I found in it a subterranean canal, which, instead of being arched over, is covered with pieces of sandstone six or seven feet long by three feet wide. These ruins extend several leagues to the north of Hella, and incontestably mark the situation of ancient Baby- lon. . . . "Besides the bricks with inscriptions, which I have mentioned, there are solid cylinders, three inches in diameter, of a white substance, covered with very small writing, resembling the inscrip- tions of Persepolis mentioned by Chardin. Four years ago I saw one ; but I was not eager to pro- cure it, as I was assured that they were very com- mon. I mentioned them to the master mason, who 108 HISTORY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. told me that lie sometimes found such, but left them among the rubbish as useless. Black stones which have inscriptions engraved on them are also met with." ' In these descriptions and narratives of the learned and inquiring abbe are found the first notices of ex- cavations and the first accounts of the finding of in- scriptions beyond the mere building bricks stamped with names and titles of kings. These had been seen often before and several had been taken to Europe. The period of description of mounds has now come to an end and the period of excavation has fully come. These little inscriptions which at first awakened so slight an interest in Abbe Beauchamp would soon be eagerly sought with pick and shovel. Then would come the effort to read them, and later the full knowledge of the past history of the great valley. One observation of the abbe is of great importance in this story. The cylinders, he says, were "covered with veiy small writing, resembling the inscriptions of Persep- olis mentioned by Chardin." That showed, as by prophetic instinct, the veiy line which would be pursued for the decipherment of the literature of Babylon. As definite knowledge of the site of Nineveh, as 1 Abbe Beauchamp made at least two visits to Hillah. The description of the first is found in Journal des Savants, Mai, 1785, pp. 852, ff. The second is publislied in Journal des Savants, December, 1790, pp. 2403, ff. The extracts given above are from the latter, pp. 2418, ff. This second paper is translated into English in the £uropea7i Magazine, May, 1792, pp. 338, ff ; for extracts see pp. 340, ff. EXPLORATIONS, 1734-1820. 109 Abbe Beauchamp had achieved of the site of Baby- lon, was now soon secured by a French physician, Guillaume A. Olivier, who was sent into the East for the purpose chiefly of scientific study. He had no such knowledge of the ancient world as the abbe, and therefore failed to make any independ- ent contribution to the progress of knowledge re- specting Nineveh. His references to the city are scanty enough, and he does not appear to have seen any inscriptions.' At this time the knowledge of ancient Babylon very far exceeded the knowledge of Nineveh. It is, however, proper to say that both sites had been found, and excavations on a very small scale had been begun at Babylon. These excavations, it is true, were primarily made to ob- tain building material which was to be used in the construction of dwellings for the people about the neighboring country. Incidentally, however, in- scriptions were found, and these were recognized as being pieces of writing from the ancient people of Babylon. The words of Beauchamp produced an uncommon impression in Europe, and were the sub- ject of much discussion. In England especially were men aroused by them to a sense of eager thirst for a sight of these inscriptions — the books of the Baby- lonians — and for an effort to read them. So soon as this desire should crystallize it was certain to re- sult in an attempt to secure some of them for an English museum. The first move in this direction ' Voyage dans C Empire 0.,'ioiuan, i' Egypt e et la Perse, par G. A. Olivier. Paris, an. 12, iv, pp. 283, 284 [published 18