The very first writing system used wedge-shaped reeds pressed into clay to create marks representing compound sounds and syllables rather than alphabetic letters. This type of writing is called “cuneiform” and was used by several ancient civilizations as early as 3000 BCE. Pictured here are several (real!) examples of ancient cuneiform tablets and fragments from our collection that had once served as exercises for our graduate students to decipher for their exams.
Though cuneiform was rediscovered by European explorers in the 17th century, the understanding of this complex writing system remained a mystery for another 200 years. The story of how the code was cracked is the subject of a forthcoming book by Joshua Hammer, “The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World’s Oldest Writing.”
This exciting tale is reminiscent of the Talmudic legend surrounding the Septuagint, which describes its origin this way: “King Ptolemy once gathered 72 [Jewish] Elders. He placed them in 72 chambers, each of them in a separate one, without revealing to them why they were summoned. He entered each one’s room and said: ‘Write for me the Torah of Moshe, your teacher’. God put it in the heart of each one to translate identically as all the others did.” (Megillah 9a).
Amidst great scholarly skepticism that it was remotely possible to decipher cuneiform and its hundreds of characters – a system that did not use an alphabet or pictographs – a heady, and ultimately groundbreaking competition unfolded.
Tiglath Pileser I, Prism (12th c. BCE). Held in the British Museum.
In the mid 19th century, several scholars began to make advances with cuneiform, working backwards from Old Persian texts. Desperate to show that his cuneiform interpretations were accurate, one Sir Henry Rawlinson was at work on a translation of the Tiglath Pileser I prism when he was both aided and challenged by William Henry Fox Talbot. Talbot thought he could translate this 12th c. BCE homage to the Assyrian king more quickly than Rawlinson, and declared that if their translations aligned, “it must indicate that they have Truth for their basis.” In other words, like the Talmudic legend, a writing trial, where scholars would work on their translations/transcriptions independently would prove the veracity of the tradition, or in this case, show it is truly possible to understand the ancient text.
Two other linguists joined the fray, hoping to prove that each was the premiere expert in Assyriology and make the experiment more robust (and hopefully demonstrate that its conclusions were irrefutable). Dr. Fredrick Hincks, an Irish country parson, and a German Jewish academic, Julius Oppert, were invited to participate and fervently accepted. The four men worked independently and were to seal and mail their work to a panel of judges for evaluation. Only Rawlinson and Talbot completed all 54 sections of the inscription before the two-month deadline. As much as the four translations of the completed sections reflected deviations from each other, the similarities and convergences were striking.
Published by the Royal Asiatic Society in 1857, pictured here are the results of their work. While history crowned Rawlinson the victor in the race, the true story is more complex. Undoubtedly, the trial proved effective, and subsequently great strides were made in understanding the thousands of tablets, steles, and frescos that have gone on to teach us so much about the ancient world.
Contributed by Abigail Bacon, Head of Public Services and Outreach