Click2Biography - Code of Hammurabi - Chapter 4

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>CODE OF HAMMURABI</p> <p><font size="4">CHAPTER 4 - CUNEIFORM IS DECIPHERED</b></font></p> </div>  <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">Scholars tried to figure out what the words meant, but they had no guidelines. Georg <a href="http://www.hann-muenden.net/spontan/grotefen.htm" target="_blank"><b>Grotefund</b></a>, a high school teacher in Germany, was sure the cuneiform wedges represented some type of alphabet. Using two different inscriptions from a gate at <a href="http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/ARI/PLANS/Persepolis_Plan_72dpi_9.html" ; target="_blank"><b>Persepolis</b></a> (in modern Iran), Grotefund isolated what he believed were royal names. Turns out he was right, but he couldn't really do more without a kind of Rosetta Stone for cuneiform. </p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://www.rosetta.com/-images/RosettaStone.gif" target="_blank"><b>The Rosetta Stone</b></a> (with its three inscriptions in different languages that said the same thing) was rediscovered in <a href="javascript:Start('http://www.cimmerii.demon.co.uk/therosettastone/rashidmap.jpg')" ;><b>Rashid</b></a> (Rosetta), Egypt in 1799 by <a href="http://www.rosetta.com/-images/Napoleon.gif" ; target="_blank"><b>Napoleon's</b></a> army. Because a young French Egyptologist, <a href="http://mistral.culture.fr/louvre/anglais/collec/ae/formae.htm" ; target="_blank"><b>Jean Francois Champollion</b></a>, understood two of the three languages, he was able to unlock the secret to the third language: Egyptian hieroglyphics. Scholars trying to decipher cuneiform writing needed a similar break. They got it from an ancient king of Persia mentioned in the Bible: <a href="http://home.wxs.nl/~lende045/Names/Darius_I.html" target="_blank"><b> Darius I</b></a>.</p> <p align="justify">A great ruler in the 5th Century B.C., Darius conquered many people, not just the Hebrews. He commemorated his genealogy and many conquests in three languages written in cuneiform script on the <a href="http://seminary.georgefox.edu/courses/bst550/reports/Jbartlett/BehistInscrPhoto.jpg" ; target="_blank"><b>face of a cliff</b></a> in Bisitun, Persia (the Zagros Mountains of Western Iran). To make sure no one could ever deface his monument, Darius had the <a href="http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~murray/classes/hdt-sem/bisitun01.jpg" ; target="_blank"><b>ledge</b></a> sheared off. For centuries after his death (<a href="http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/PA/IRAN/n37266_72dpi.html" ; target="_blank"><b>this is his tomb</b></a>) no one knew what the drawings signified.</p> <p align="justify">In 1835, an Englishman, <a href="http://couponsurfer.infoplease.com/ce5/CE043387.html" target="_blank"><b>Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson</b></a>, was serving as consul at Baghdad. An Orientalist who had some understanding of Sanskrit and Avestan (languages closely related to Old Persian), Rawlinson decided to scale the rock at Bisitun. Working under <a href="http://seminary.georgefox.edu/courses/bst550/reports/Jbartlett/behistundrawing1.jpg" ; target="_blank"><b>dangerous conditions</b></a>, he copied the inscription (called the Behistun Inscription) on the mountain. Nearly ten years passed before he had it all.</p> <p align="justify">Once he had the entire inscription - written in Old Persian, Susian (the Iranian language of Elam), and Assyrian - Rawlinson deciphered the <a href="http://www.deil.uiuc.edu/EIL199/WebProjects/teams/team1/eil.html/whodec.htm" ; target="_blank"><b>Old Persian engraving</b></a> since it was closest to a language he already knew. But cracking the other languages did not go as smoothly. Susian (Elamite) was not related to either Sanskrit or Avestan. And, although Assyrian was related to other Semitic languages (like Hebrew and Aramaic), it was complicated by all the old Sumerian signs and symbols. </p> <p align="justify">When scholars trying to decipher the Susian/Elamite and Assyrian inscriptions finally cracked the mystery of those ancient languages, each man sealed his translation. If they were similar, people would believe the hidden world of cuneiform writing was finally open to further study because the scholars had not collaborated. </p> <p align="justify"><a ; href="http://www.deil.uiuc.edu/EIL199/WebProjects/teams/team1/eil.html/how.htm" target="_blank"><b>The translations</b></a> were close enough. Each language of the <a href="http://www.avesta.org/op/op.htm" ; target="_blank"><b>Behistun Inscription</b></a> said the same thing: How great Darius was and how great was his ancestry. (Scroll down to the text for the Darius columns to read the translation in English.) The code to understanding cuneiform had been cracked. It was the mid-nineteenth century, and our road to discovering Hammurabi was now paved.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font size="2"><a href="code_hammurabi_ch3.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>     <a href="code_hammurabi_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER  </a>   <a href="code_hammurabi_ch5.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>