In that part of our work discussing Alphabetic Origins, the student will find a sufficiency
of authorities cited to verify the accuracy of those results to which this volume is confined
Recapitulation here is needless but, should ever such inquirer follow the developments of
palaeographies! discovery, book by book, backwards from to-day, his bark will not ground
until he reaches the year A. n. 1797, and touches the Mémoire sur les antiquités de la Perse
et sur les médailles des Rois Sassanides. Its author, De Sacy, is to palæography that which
his colleague Cuvier is to palaeontology : each being the inventor of the only true method
of ratiocination in either science. Prom the former’s Memoir we have borrowed many of
the citations above presented; and, our remarks being but introductory to Assyrian chronology,
a reference to the excellent compendium of Vaux (531) indicates the shortest road
to summary annals of cuneiform investigation ; no less than, corroborates our assertion that
monumental Assyria was a blank down to 1843.
Paul-Emile Botta (whose surname is dear to all American readers of his uncle’s Stork
dell’ Independerá), appointed French Consul at Mosul in 1842, was the first to resuscitate
Nineveh since her fall in b. o. 606. Proficient as an Orientalist and Eastern traveller
through residence in, Syria, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Arabia, since 1829-30, none possessed
higher qualifications for the task,-.yet, with rare modesty, he attributes his own discoveries
(as Newton to an apple his finding the laws of gravitation) to an accident ; viz., to a couple of
bricks, brought to him by a Nestorian dyer, who unearthed them whilst digging a foundation
for stoves and boilers on the mound of Khorscéàd. (532), But, these two forlorn bricks
were impressed with arrow-heads - things which Botta’s education at once permitted him
to appreciate. Ten years have since elapsed. The Louvre proudly displays his sculptured
deterrations — national typography splendidly perpetuates his unaffected narrative—and,
those who weigh science by “ dollars and cents” may sneer at'legislative munificence on
learning that France, in 1849, had already voted $150,000 to eternalize Botta’s Assyrian
deeds ; without either forgetting an individual’s future, or considering the balance of an
account-current between a man and his country thereby stricken. His consulate is now at
Jerusalem.
An intimate friend, and enthusiastic spectator of the French Consul’s achievements, commenced
operations where the latter relinquished them. Henry Austen Layard — of noble
Huguenot extraction-born at Ceylon, and brought up at Florence, is essentially a man
of the East. Leaving England in 1839, he reached Mosul,. 1842, by way of Germany,
Russia, Dalmatia, the Bosphorus, Asia Minor, Persia, and Kusistàn. His performances are
familiar to all readers of Nineveh and its Remains, 1849 ; and Babylon and Nineveh, 2d Exped.,
1853. The letters LL.D. and M. P., and the office of Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs,’
tell how a nation can reward living merit: at the same time that “ Eastern questions’’
point to eventualities not less nationally important. The British Museum consecrates for
science the innumerable exhumations of Layard.
®reat as have been> however, the exploits of these discoverers, they must not dazzle our
vision from beholding the less ostentatious if archæolôgically superior researches of Raw-
linson and of Hincks ; but for whom, the cuneiform records of Nineveh and Babylon might
have yet remained sealed books : although, so closely followed have these savants been by
a Lowenstem, a De Longpérier and" a De Saulcy ; so materially aided by Birch, Norris,
and other skilful palaeographers ; that by grouping them all into a “ Cuneiform School ”
the invidious task of assigning a place to any one is cheerfully avoided. Our inquiry
simply is, what have they all done in Assyrian chronology ?
Let it first be observed “ en passant)” that the long lists of Chaldeean, Arab, Assyrian,
and Babylonish sovereigns, preserved by Ctesias, Ptolemy, and the Hebrews ; (533) coupled
with the pseudo-antiquity popularly assigned to the Xth Chapter of Genesis; had occasioned
the most exaggerated notions, about 1844-50, of the epochas to which these sculptures of
(531) Nineveh and Persepolis; London, ed., 1852.
(532) Lettres à M. Mold; Découvertes à Khorsabad, 1845, p. 2 j— Monument de Ninive, chap, ii., p. 23. |
(538) ÏBASEE’S excellent Mesopotamia, pp. 47-50 ; and Oort’s Ancient Fragments; supply the'classical
Assyria should be,attributed. Nowhere was this sentimentality exhibited more strongly
than at the British Museum. Ninevite bas-reliefs of the 7th century b, c, were reverenced
by pious crowds who looked upon them as if their carving had actually been coeval with
the “ Tower of Babel” ; at the same time that Egyptian relics of the IVth Memphite
dynasty, belonging to the 4th chiliad before c., and those stupendous granites of the XVIIth-
XVIIIth dynasties, positively dating in the 16th—13th centuries prior to the same era, were
passed over in contemptuous silence ; although displayed in gigantic halls, whilst Assyria
(for want of room) lay in an underground cellar! And yet, withaf, the only monumental
proof of the existence of either BaBeL, or NINWE, 1600 years b. p., depended then, as it
does now, upon Thotmes Hld’s “ Statistical Tablet” of Karnac! (534) Nor, excited by
the magnificence of their monumental resurrections, can we be surprised that the two
explorers somewhat participated, at that time, in the general feeling,
Bht, the habit of dispassionate comparison of art (upon itself alone) among sculptured
antiquities of every period and region collected in European Museums, had instinctively
led thorough archaeologists to pronounce the word “ modern,” over every fragment brought
to London and Paris from Nimroud or Khorsabad; and this before a single Assyro-cuneatic
inscription' had been deciphered. First to undertake this thankless office was De Longpérier
; (535) who proclaimed, to shocked orthodoxy, that nothing found or published of Assyrian
bas-reliefs could possibly ascend beyond the 9th century ; at the same time that
Khorsabâd had then not yielded anything older than the 7th-8th century b . c .
Nevertheless, it was published —
“ 0n tlie most modérate calculation, we may assign a date of 1100 or 1200 before Christ
to the erection of the most ancient [palace] ; bnt the probability is, that it is much more
ancient : (536) and maintained — “ There is no reason why we should not assign to Assyria
th e same remote antiquity we claim for Egypt” [b . c . 3500?].
Col. Rawlinson too, whilst conceding that “ the whole structure of the Assyrian graphic
system evidently betrays an Egyptian origin: first organized upon an Egyptian model,”(537)
formerly considered the Obelisk of Nimroud to date about the 12th-13th century b . c .
Now, this age for Assyrian monumental commencements harmonizes perfectly with Egyptian
conquests and dominion over much of that country, during the XVIIth dynasty, 15th-
16th centuries b . c . It is merely the archaeological attribution of any sculptures, yet found
and published, to such an epoch that we contest. We are the last to curtail any nation’s
chronography ; but, misled so often by hypotheses, we cease to depend any further upon
arithmetic where' not supported by positively archaeological stratifications. Lepsius, it seems
to us, has fairly stated the possibilities of Ohaldaic chronology, (538) and future researches
by cuneiform scholars will doubtless determine the relative position of each historical stratum
as firmly for Assyria as has been already done for Egypt.
With -these provisoes, we may safely present a synopsis of the last chronological results
put forth by Layard. Possessing all the resources at present attainable, and profoundly
versed himSelf in Assyrian studies, his tabulation of the monumental series of reigns
inspires full confidence, at the same time that his results accord naturally with the histories
of adjacent countries and people. (539)
Ante-monumental P eriod. .
Into this category ate qast the vague and semi-mythical traditions of Nimrod, Ninus,
Belus, and their several lines ; which, according to classical writers, may ascend to 1903
years before Alexander, equivalent to 2234 b . c. (540)
(534) B ir c h : Ôp. cit.; 1846; p. 37: — Twq Egyptian Cartouches found at Nimroud; 1848; pp. 161-177:_
Gliddon : Otia; p. 103. Vide also Birch, Annals of Thotmes III. ; Archæoiogia, 1853, xxxv. p. 160.
(535) i j j | g Archéologique, Oct. 1847 : — Galerie Assyrienne, Musée du Louvre, 1849; p. 16H - Revue Archtol.
uct. 1850.
(536) Layard: Nineveh and its Remains; Am. éd., 1849; pp. 176, 179, 185.
(537) Commentary on the Cuneiform Inscriptions, &c. ; 1850; pp. 4, 7, 21, 71, 73 74.
(538), Chronologie der Ægypter; i. pp. 6-12.
(539) Babylon; pp. 611-625 already IUwlinson extends Assyrian antiquity to the 14th century b. o.; Jour.
• Asiat. Soc., 1853, p. xviii., note.
(540) Lepsius : i. p. 10.