Category: History - Ancient

In the path of the alphabet an historical account of the ancient beginnings and evolution of the modern alphabet

OF all the splendid achievements of archæological research during the present century, there are none of more universal interest and importance than those which are revealing the origin and history of letters; this, not alone for the historic values of these discoveries, for t...

Chapters

9. CHAPTER IX.

THE Semitic Assyrians and the Semitic people of other portions of Mesopotamia, had adopted the cuneiform script and the Turanian syllabary as early as the days of Sargon. From t...

6. CHAPTER VI.

THE immense antiquity suggested in the maritime conditions at Ur and Eridu is again emphasized by the astronomical tablets. At this remote date it appears that these ancient Tur...

11. CHAPTER XI.

FOR monumental purposes, the Persian cuneiform remained the official script of the empire conjointly with the Semitic Scythian cuneiform until the conquest of Persia by Alexande...

4. CHAPTER IV.

MANY eminent philologists suggest a time in the history of human speech when language was monosyllabic, when by a few simple utterances human beings were able to express many th...

8. CHAPTER VIII.

THIS latest king of Babylon is, however, an interesting personage. To him we are indebted for many records which but for him the archæologists of this present time would not hav...

3. CHAPTER III.

WHILE yielding to the charm of some master of language, who of us gives a thought to the fact that the grace and flow, the flexibility, the mysterious eloquence of written speec...

10. CHAPTER X.

The first evidences we have as yet of such development through this cuneiform was at the time when the Medes, an Aryan people related to the Persians, received from the primitiv...

7. CHAPTER VII.

OF the great rulers in Mesopotamia, both Turanian and Semitic, who stand out most distinctly in the records of this remote past, are the Turanian prince, Gudea, about 4800 B. C....

5. CHAPTER V.

THE path of our alphabet seems to be taking us far afield when we turn to Chinese systems of writing and to the origin and development of cuneiform. Nevertheless, it is in this...

1. CHAPTER I.

OF all the splendid achievements of archæological research during the present century, there are none of more universal interest and importance than those which are revealing th...

2. CHAPTER II.

THE other event referred to, which was to open to scholars another field of research, in interest and importance equal to the Egyptian discoveries, was the work of Grotefend, ea...