Download Adkins, Lesley. Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost

Adkins, Lesley. Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages
of Babylon. (Thomas Dunne Books. 2003) 424 pp. $29.95
Reviewed by Sharukin Yelda
In the nineteenth century, several mostly self-taught Western scholars
were able to decipher the obscure ancient Middle Eastern scripts when both the
languages and the alphabets were forgotten for almost 4000 years. After the
decipherments, new chapters in the long lost records of ancient history were
opened. The brilliant Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810-1895) was one of the most
prominent scholars. After unraveling the Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions
carved in 520 BC on the orders of Darius I “the Great” on the surface of the
perpendicular Rock of Bisotun in western Iran, he became a pioneer and a
legendary figure in ancient Middle Eastern studies. Adkins credits this
remarkable scholar for his extraordinary contributions to the understanding of the
ancient world.
Sumerians, a people of ambiguous origin, were the first to develop the art
of writing. (The Chinese and Egyptians were to invent their writing systems
centuries later.) Sumerians were a highly cultured people who first appeared in
southern Mesopotamia in about 4500 BC. Among their many accomplishments
was the invention of ideograms in 4000 BC. These primitive signs represented an
entire word and gave the word phonetic power and meaning. Initially, the crude
signs were inscribed with reeds on damp clay tablets that were left to dry under
the sun or were baked in kilns. Later, the signs were chiseled on stone slabs and
monuments making them more permanent. When first discovered by Westerners,
the signs were called cuneiform, since they resembled wedges. (Cuneus means,
“wedge” in Latin). In about 2350 BC, Semitic nomads called Akkadians,
defeated the Sumerians. The Akkadians borrowed their writing and later
transmitted it to others, such as Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Elamites,
Hittites and Urartians. For three thousand years, cuneiform was the only script
used by these people. It was following Rawlinson’s ingenious decoding that all
other languages written in cuneiform were also read.
Up to the end of the nineteenth century, the scant knowledge about the
ancient Middle East was the few references made in the Bible or the Greek
classics. After the deciphering of the cuneiform, it was learned that many stories
in the Bible, such as that of the Flood and Creation, were actually borrowed
almost verbatim from original Mesopotamian epics such as Gilgamesh and
Enuma Elish. Also, it became clear that some of the Mosaic laws were copies
from the Babylonian king, Hammurabi. Until then, it was believed that the Old
Testament was the word of God and it was revealed to Moses and others by
divine inspiration. When, sometime earlier than 1700 BC, Patriarch Abraham left
the Ur of the Chaldees (in southern Mesopotamia) for Canaan, in addition to his
wife Sarah, his kinsmen and flock, he must have taken the legends and laws
prevalent at the time that were later entered in the Hebrew Bible. Rawlinson
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Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, Vol. 20, no. 1, 2006
deserves credit for being a conduit in the transformation of ancient history to
modern times.
Henry Rawlinson, while serving as a young cadet in India with the East
India Company, was recognized for his linguistic gifts and athletic abilities.
These were aptitudes that would later enable him to accomplish much in his
literary quest. It was in 1833 that because of his fluency in Persian, he was
elected to travel to Persia and train the ramshackle troops of Fath Ali Shah’s
army. While traveling north to Tehran, he visited the ruins of Persepolis, the
ancient Persian palace complex in the south central part of the country. It was
then that he had his first glimpse of the incomprehensible cuneiform script. Later,
while in Bisotun, ‘without columns’ (also spelled: Bisitun, Biutun and Behistun)
close to Kermanshah, in the western part of the country, he would make his name
in history after deciphering the cuneiform script. On this steep rock was where
Darius had an imposing massive relief sculpted showing him trampling with one
leg the usurper Guamata, in front of nine other chained prisoners. On both sides
and under the relief were extensive trilingual inscriptions chiseled in cuneiform
in Old Persian, Babylonian and Elamite (the language spoken by aboriginal
Persians in the southern provinces). Rawlinson, using his natural athletic
abilities, could do what previous Westerners had tried but had failed. He was able
to practically claw his way up the steep incline of the immense rock, (which was
smoothened in antiquity on Darius’ orders to prevent vandalism) and while
risking his life and barely standing on a narrow ledge, was able to copy and later
decipher, transliterate and then translate the Old Persian inscription, thus
“entering” the language. His accomplishment was remarkable and when
published was well received by the philologists in the European academic circles.
It was then that Rawlinson was able to prove that Herodotus, known as the Father
of History, was a reliable historian. Unbeknownst to him, a German teacher
named George Fredrick Goetfrend had already read several Old Persian names in
1802.
In 1840, after a three year long tour of duty serving in the ill-conceived
and disastrous campaign in the First Anglo-Afghan War, (where he was nearly
killed) Rawlinson, now a major, was assigned to be the East India Company’s
Political Agent and British Consul at Baghdad. At the time, in northern Iraq, in
newly discovered ruins of Nimrud and Nineveh, (which were destroyed in 612
BC), another Englishman named Austin Henry Layard, and the French Consul,
Paul Émil Bohta, were excavating and discovering immense ancient statues and
hundreds, if not thousands of clay tablets that would eventually end up in the
British Museum and the Louvre. Their findings would shed much light on the
ancient civilizations of the Middle East. Here, the author gives a detailed
narrative about the archeological excavations, especially those in other sites such
as Khorsabad, Babylon, Ashur and Nippur to name a few. After over two
thousand years, statues, stone inscriptions and colossal human-headed winged
bulls were unearthed in various palaces, temples and cities. By the end of the
century, after many other archeological digs in plains and featureless mounds
Book Review: Empires of the Palin
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covering ancient cities (tells, in Arabic) in Mesopotamia, more artifacts were
excavated and exhibited in their ancient majesty. It was then learned, far beyond
anyone’s doubt, that when Greece was still lingering in barbarism, the ancient
Middle East was enjoying a refined culture and had become the source of our
civilization.
This volume, besides being well illustrated, is a comprehensive
biography of the gifted Rawlinson and his colorful life. It covers his obsession
with the ancient past, his courage as a British military officer and his skills as a
consummate diplomat and linguist. The book is also an interesting read about
other topics. The author has used Rawlinson and his time to write about the
British Raj, Persia, Afghanistan, the early archeological excavations in Iraq, the
process of decoding the various other cuneiform writings, and the jealousies and
in-fighting between the various European scholars. What may be a bit distracting
to the average reader are the many details about the decoding processes of the
ancient scripts and the squabbling among the scholars in England and the rest of
Europe. Readers of this journal will miss any reference to the still living Syriac
(neo-Aramaic) speaking native Assyrians in the Middle East — the descendants
of those who had accomplished most of what the book is all about. The only
reference made to Assyrians is, “Nestorians,” and it is about the massacre of
three thousand of them in northern Iraq by the Kurds during that period