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respecting the early tribes then inhabiting these countries, as read by Major Rawlinson, supplied a continuous and singularly coherent narrative, in which there were only two checks of any consequence: one was where the events of the third and fourth years of the monarch's reign were hopelessly mixed up together, and which he said he could only account for by supposing that the workmen employed to make the inscription had inadvertently left out a line; and the other was where, towards the end of his reign, the events of a campaign begun by the lieutenant were ascribed to the king, and which is probably to be ascribed to the vanity of the monarch, or the flattery of the scribe. It was further mentioned that the events of one of the early campaigns, productive of more than ordinary treasure, were commemorated in more detail in an inscription on a colossal bull which had been found among the ruins, and which Major Rawlinson also read. Above the inscription were several epigraphs illustrative of the tribute received from different countries. He could not attempt to decipher all the articles apparently enumerated, but among them were gold and silver, horses and camels, which were termed "beasts of the desert, with double backs." There were also mutilated inscriptions relating to the son and grandson of this monarch; but after them it appeared that from domestic troubles and foreign conquests there was an interruption to this dynasty; and when events could be again deciphered through the inscriptions, there appeared to be such a great change in the manners and customs of the people, that Dr. Layard had thought a new race had come to inhabit the land. Major Rawlinson is not of that opinion, though he remarked that he was satisfied a great change must have occurred among the people. There had been an interregnum, and possibly another branch of the family came afterwards to the throne, but the later inscriptions all asserted the then

reigning monarchs to be of the family of Sardanapalus. One curious fact apparent from the later inscriptions was, that a strong Scythic element had been infused into the west of Asia, and the Cymri were referred to in almost every inscription.

In answer to inquiries, Major Rawlinson said, that undoubtedly the language was of a true Semitic character, closely allied to the Hebrew and Chaldee in the pronouns and prenominal affixes, but otherwise more allied to the African languages; and he had a strong impression that what were called the Semitic languages, would be found to have sprung from an African source.

In these remarkably interesting investigations, we are led to follow down the history of the Assyrian Empire not only to its connection with some of the later dynasties of Egypt, but also, with a race far more interesting to us, since we trace in them the parents of European colonization, and of the first occupants of the British Isles. It is astonishing, indeed, the sagacity with which Major Rawlinson has followed out the difficult inquiry regarding the meaning and value of the cuneiform characters. We can hardly attach too great an interest to these inscriptions when we consider the circumstances under which they have been found. From the unmistakeable records of sacred history, we learn of the founding of Babel, by Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, and out of that went forth Ashur the builder of Nineveh and Calah, and the founder of the Assyrian Empire. These therefore without doubt are the oldest of the world's cities, and amid the newly discovered ruins, the clayey heaps of which are believed to be the tumuli of these buried capitals, impressed bricks and cylinders, and inscribed gems and marbles, have been found, doubtless containing some of the oldest written records of man. We may well search into them, to read if possible their long treasured secrets. Who can tell what wonderful revelations they may con

tain! It is certain that the least important fact which they may disclose must be of some value to the historian, and may add new light to the labours of the chronologist. It is not necessary to remark to the reader that the cuneiform, or arrow-headed character, was known to the students of antiquity before the recent researches at Nimroud and Khorsabad. They had, long before, been observed stamped on the bricks of Babylon, and cut upon the marble monuments of Persepolis, as well as on rocks in Armenia, and even, under very rare circumstances, in Egypt.

The arrow-headed characters differ in every respect from the hieroglyphics used in the inscriptions of Egypt. They are purely literal, not symbolical. They are, in fact, arbitrary alphabetic signs, and on this very account it might justly be considered a much more hopeless task to attempt to recover their meaning, than to decipher the hieroglyphic records of the Egyptian temples and tombs. One of the first and most marked characteristics of the arrow-headed characters is, that they were obviously designed for inscriptions, cut on stone or impressed in brick, and were by no means adapted for current writing. An ingenious suggestion has been recently thrown out, by which their intimate connection with the early brick-makers of the Asiatic plains is rendered still more apparent. It is found that by taking a common square burnt brick, figures may be impressed with its corner and edge upon the unburnt clay exactly resembling a certain class of the cuneiform inscriptions. Such therefore, in all probability, was the origin of these characters. The makers of bricks for building the old cities on the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates, wishing, it may be, to distinguish the bricks of particular workmen, or those destined for a special purpose, would indent their surface with the mark formed by the most ready implement, one of the burnt bricks lying around them. A change of dis

tinctive marks being required, it may be to denote the products of different kilns, or the materials destined for several important erections carrying on at once, two, three, or more, triangular indentations with the corner of the hard brick, would abundantly answer the required end, and be followed naturally by other more complicated combinations of indented triangles and lines, as additional marks were required. Thus simply, in all probability, originated the first Asiatic alphabet, contemporaneously with some of the earliest structures of primeval cities. Through time a phonetic value would be attached to them, as to the arbitrary signs of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and thus the great gift of letters was secured, by means of which records of Babylon and Nineveh are still recoverable from the mouldering rubbish over which the storms of so many centuries have swept in their desolation.

Many of the inscriptions on the bricks brought from the various sites of the ancient cities of Asia, have evidently been impressed with a stamp, containing a set formula, and not infrequently bearing the name of the reigning sovereign. Hieroglyphic impressions, of similar import, and containing royal cartouches, are found on the early bricks of Egyptian pyramids or tombs. Others, however, are probably unique, and at any rate numerous such inscriptions have been copied, besides those now deposited in the public museums of London and Paris. The Babylonian characters, on account of their extremely rude shape, have been frequently called nail-headed; whereas the Persepolitan, as well as those sculptured on the Nimroud marbles, have the distinct arrow-headed form. No real difference, however, seems to exist between them. It was for many centuries a subject of doubt, if not of positive disbelief, whether the Egyptians had ever attached an alphabetic value to their symbolic hieroglyphics. No such doubts, however, could reasonably

be entertained in reference to the cuneiform characters. They are manifestly arbitrary alphabetic signs, the key to which being once lost, all hope of reading them would appear, to the ordinary student, at an end. This seemed further rendered certain by the absence of all distinct allusions, by either Greek or Latin writers, to the arrow-headed characters and inscriptions. Herodotus, indeed, mentions the Assyrian writing, and both Thucydides and Pliny refer to Assyrian letters; and it has been very reasonably conjectured that all of these allusions are to the character of which we speak. But after all, it is only a probability; and even if the fact were established, it would throw no light on the meaning of the several Assyrian letters, by which alone the inscriptions of Nineveh and Babylon, of Nimroud and Khorsabad, can be turned to account by the historian and the archæologist. Sir William Ousley, who made such extensive and minute observations and researches, during his twelve years in the East, has published, in his “Oriental Collections," an extract from a Mohammedan manuscript which professes to furnish a key to the alphabet of the Persepolitan inscriptions; but, like other alphabets contained in the same manuscript, it is a mere fiction. Niebuhr was the first to publish exact and trustworthy copies of arrowheaded inscriptions; and this led to various attempts at deciphering them; but the utmost difficulty was experienced in discovering any ascertained or probable point from whence to set out. No Rosetta Stone inscription existed, with parallel inscription or translations; and so dubious was the whole inquiry, that it even remained open to question, if the markings impressed on the bricks, and hewn on the sculptures and rocks of Asia, were alphabetical characters capable of being separated into words, and subjected to translation; or if they were not, as some maintained, mere barbarous and arbitrary signs. All analogy, however, is unquestionably in favour of their alpha

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