Part 6

The hieroglyphic writing was of two classes; called _ideographic_ in which ideas were denoted by signs or pictures and _phonetic_ wherein sounds represented ideas. In the ideographic hieroglyphs which were the older--this being the parent writing--the picture of an object expressed the idea of or represented the object itself. A fish, _e. g._, was denoted by the outline drawing of a fish; an obelisk by the picture of that object; a vulture by the delineation of that bird, and so on. Sometimes, however, the cause was put for the effect, and vice versa: thus a palette and reed would commonly represent "writing"; it might also represent a "scribe." Dishevelled hair might represent "grieving," because in the time of trouble the hair of the head would be apt to be disturbed and uncared for. At a later date these ideographic hieroglyphics or pictures representing ideas, by a process of development from the basis of pure primitive picture writing, or by the association and suggestion which one thing gave to another or to other things, or by a species of conventionalization, came to represent _sounds_;--not letters but words or parts of words. Thus came into existence the other class of hieroglyph-writing--the "phonetic" hieroglyphics.

In the phonetic hieroglyphics pictures were used to express the sound of the objects which they respectively represented; and, in time, certain of the hieroglyphics both expressed and stood for other objects; and certain of the phonetics came to have syllabic value. Afterwards, in the order of development, ideas were communicated, not by pictures but by symbols for pictures, or by characters that represented and stood for definite ideas:--A star, thus, came to express the idea of God, and a succession of herons in a row the idea of "glorified souls."[40] Similar is the archæological witness from ancient Mexico. Prescott says: "A Mexican manuscript looks like a collection of pictures, each one forming the subject of a special study. The Aztecs had various emblems for expressing such things as from their nature could not be directly represented by the painter. A 'tongue,' for example, denoted speaking; a 'footprint,' traveling; a 'man on the ground,' an earthquake. These symbols were often very arbitrary, varying with the caprice of the writer; and it required wise discrimination to interpret them, as a slight change in the form or position of the figure intimated a very different meaning. They also employed phonetic signs, though these were chiefly confined to the names of persons and places. Lastly, the pictures were colored in gaudy contrasts, so as to produce the most vivid impression, for even colors speak in the Aztec hieroglyphics."[41]

Both the ideographic and the phonetic hieroglyphics are referred to in the following from Professor Hutson: "The ideographs were first pictures pure and simple of actual objects. A large number of them became ultimately symbolic, representing any one of a large group of ideas, and needing its nearest group of phonetics to give it definiteness. The phonetics expressed the sounds of syllables, not of letters, as in the case with our alphabets. Some of these phonetics even came to be used eventually as representatives of letters."[42] Thus in the phonetic writing the scribe finally expressed sounds independent of pictures or symbols and so created "words" through which ideas were recorded, perpetuated, and disseminated. There were about two thousand of the hieroglyphic signs.

At best, the picture-writing, while intelligible enough to its originators, was an incomplete and clumsy method of treasuring and transmitting knowledge. It was very liable to misinterpretation and misapplication. It was always exposed to the possibility of being misunderstood, inasmuch as every picture might have a variety of applications or significations, and thus might represent a number of different though kindred things or conceptions. "Thus in Egyptian we find two legs might represent simply the legs of a man, but they might denote 'walking,' 'going,' 'running,' 'standing,' 'support,' and even 'growth,' and their significance had to be divined without further explanation or assistance."[43] The exposure to error involved in the decipherment of the ancient picture-writing may be illustrated by what is said to have been an actual occurrence of modern times. It is related of an illiterate though not necessarily ignorant grocer who, being unable to write, kept his accounts by picturing the various articles bought and sold at his little store. Usually there was no occasion for any one to dispute the accuracy of his "charges" though they were recorded in a species of hieroglyphics--his own invention. On one occasion, however, the grocer was taken to task by a customer who "questioned" the "account" of a _cheese_ which had been "charged up" against him. The customer protested that he had never bought a whole cheese, but acknowledged that he had bought what resembled a whole cheese in shape--a _grindstone_. This admission supplied a clue to the error in the grocer's "charges," for, in his picture-record he had inadvertently omitted the square hole in the center of his picture which would have transformed the "charge" of a cheese into that of a grindstone. In like manner, there was always an imminent and special exposure to error in the "record" with the ideographic hieroglyphic writing. And in addition to the inherent disabilities of the picture-writing and its exposure to a mistaken decipherment, these hieroglyphics gradually lost somewhat of their purely representative and symbolical value and thus, by being conventionalized, came into a more universal and a permanent use. Out of this fact grew the larger significance of the _demotic_ writing as contrasted with the _hieratic_ or priestly writing.

These ancient Egyptian writings, both the hieroglyphic and the demotic, were, alike, a sealed literature until the discovery (in 1799) of the Rosetta Stone--and its subsequent decipherment by Champollion and Young. The inscription of this most important "find" is cut into a basalt slab, three feet two inches long and two feet five inches wide. On this slab is carved a tri-lingual decree of Ptolemy Epiphanes in _hieroglyphic_ or the earliest form of picture-writing, in _demotic_ or the later writing of the people as distinguished from that of the priests, and in _Greek_ or the language resulting from Alexander's domination of the world--the common tongue at the beginning of the Christian Era. The former two inscriptions, though in forms of the Egyptian language long "dead" and undecipherable, were given a material resurrection through their Greek consort. The Greek language, therefore, was the key to unlock, not the inscription of the Rosetta Stone alone but also the vast treasure house of the ancient Egyptian literature. By means of the "golden guess" or the hypothesis of Dr. Young that each part of the tri-lingual inscription on the Rosetta Stone referred to or contained the same subject-matter though in different writings; through the ascertainable meaning of the Greek part of the inscription (including the proper names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra); and through the untiring patience of these early Egyptologists, the hitherto unknown meaning, not only of the Rosetta Stone but of the entire Egyptian hieroglyphs, has been opened up to the world's view.

(_2_) _The cuneiform writing._ Scarcely second in time or importance to the hieroglyphs of Egypt was the cuneiform or wedge-shaped writing of the primitive Accadians of Mesopotamia, and communicated by them to the after Assyrians and Babylonians. The cuneiform writing was probably derived from an earlier hieroglyphic language among the most primitive people of Accad. This is evidenced by the pictured monuments and inscribed temple walls and gates of Assyria and Babylonia. Writing, both in Egypt and in Assyro-Babylonia, and also in the (as yet) undeciphered language of the Cretans, began with pictures. The cuneiform system of writing, it is held, must have taken centuries to have reached the stage at which it is first found. "It began, no doubt," says Mr. James Baikie, "with pure picture-writing, as the Egyptian hieroglyphic system began; but while the Egyptians maintained the pictorial element of their system to the end, developing alongside of it the hieratic and demotic systems of writing for ordinary purposes, the race in question had already, when we first meet with their writing, got away from any trace of the picture stage. Their writing is already the arrow-headed or cuneiform script which persisted right down to the fall of the great empires of the ancient East."[44] "Not unlike other script," says Professor Albert T. Clay, "the cuneiform was originally pictorial; but, as in Egypt, the hieroglyphs became more and more simplified and conventionalized. But, unlike the Egyptians, the Babylonian or Sumerian became conventionalized at a time prior to the known history of the land; and the hieroglyphs were not continued in use even for monumental purposes, but were practically lost sight of."[45] This conclusion is shared by no less a distinguished scholar than Professor Sayce. He held that "the pictures were first painted on the leaves of the papyrus which grew in the marshes of the Euphrates, but as time went on a new and more plentiful writing material came to be employed in the shape of clay."[46] This clay which was found under foot everywhere, when prepared, was employed by different peoples of western Asia and for a large variety of specific uses:--for literary and historical records; for mathematical tables; for correspondence; for legal documents which were often enclosed in protecting envelopes of clay; for business transactions, contracts being witnessed unto, in the absence of seals, by each party pressing his thumb-nail into the plastic clay, thus insuring the preservation of his signature for ages; in short, for all literary, historical, mathematical, commercial, and social purposes.

The cuneiform writing, whether derived from the earlier hieroglyphs or developed independently by the Accadians, was employed with all but unlimited fertility by the Assyro-Babylonian civilization. The writing was distinguished from the hieroglyphic in that it was made up, in its entirety, of a single, wedge-shaped or arrow-headed-like character, formed with a metal _stylus_ having a triangular end. By pressing this stylus in the plastic clay of the prepared tablet or cylinder a sharply defined and angular shaped indentation was impressed and, afterward, the clay with its writing was hardened by exposure to the sun or baked by fire into an almost imperishable "record." The all but indestructible character of this material accounts for the large proportion of the Assyrian literature which has been preserved through tens of centuries.

Professor Albert T. Clay describes the preparation and use of this material as follows: "The well-kneeded clay, which had been washed to free it from grit and sand, while in a plastic condition was shaped into the form and size desired.... The stylus, which was made of metal or wood, was a very simple affair. In the early periods it was triangular and in the later quadrangular.... By pressing a corner of it into the soft clay, the impression made will be that of a wedge; hence the term cuneiform (from the Latin _cuneus_) writing."[47]

The single simple character ( ► ) from which the cuneiform writing was entirely constructed was used in multitudinous combinations and in various positions (somewhat as the Chinese ideographic characters are still used) to record the thoughts and deeds of the primitive Accadians. Great libraries, written in cuneiform, were accumulated in different centers of population; these were transmitted to the succeeding Assyrians and Babylonians. The cuneiform writing was read in the prevailing direction which the characters pointed.

The "key" to the decipherment of the cuneiform writing--as that employed in the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs--was a "lucky guess" by Dr. Grotefend, a German scholar. Following the clue of a few known names on the monuments, verifying by these the conjectural values of six cuneiform combinations, he reached basal conclusions from which, finally, the Assyro-Babylonian scholars have been enabled to read these ancient cuneiform texts and inscriptions with as much assurance as the pages of the Old Testament Hebrew; and so he opened up to view a vast body of the otherwise un-read records of the past. Thus the writings of the great libraries written in this character, as at Assur, Calah, and Nineveh, though buried from sight for multiplied centuries, are now accessible through the labors of the Assyriologists.

The cuneiform literature has one preëminent distinction--its comparative incorruptibility. Manuscripts of parchment or papyrus can be easily tampered with; their contents altered or erased; additions inserted, and parts cut out bodily. They are destructible by fire and water; by time and men. Of the exposure of the papyrus literature, in particular, Mr. George H. Putnam says: "Papyrus was an extremely perishable substance. Damp, worms, moth, mice, were all deadly enemies to the papyrus rolls, but even if, through persistent watchfulness, these were guarded against, the mere handling of the rolls, even by the most careful readers, brought them rapidly to destruction."[48] This statement would apply as well though not to the same extent to the literature embodied on parchment and vellum. The writing on tablets, to the contrary, was measurably proof against the obliterations of time and use and accident. The immense number of the tablets which remain after millenniums of years is proof positive that the cuneiform literature is almost unaffected by the "hand of slowly destroying Time." The British Museum contains the largest collection of cuneiform tablets in the world,--Sir Henry Layard, over half a century ago, contributed thereto more than twenty thousand tablets, part results of his explorations on the site of ancient Nineveh.

(_3_) _The alphabetic writing._ The alphabet, together with the printing-press, is to be regarded as among the most important associated inventions of all time. With due respect for tradition and oral teaching, no great permanent progress in civilization could have come about without some mode of writing. It has been said that "till one generation of men could transmit to the next the knowledge which they had acquired, and leave behind them a record of their experiments and observations, the arts and sciences must have remained forever in a very rudimentary state, and civilization, after reaching a certain early stage of development, would have remained almost stationary." Canon Taylor affirms that "every system of non-alphabetic (_i. e._, hieroglyphic or syllabic) writing would have been either so limited in its power of expression as to be of small practical value, or, on the other hand, so difficult and complicated, as to be unsuited to general use."

A concensus of present opinion among scholars ascribes the parentage of the alphabetic literature--at least as related to the development of civilization--to the ancient Phœnicians. The alphabetic writing may have descended from Crete to the Phœnicians, who, in turn, mediated it to all the after ages. (The Chinese literature, while it is conceded to have had a remote origin and a prolific development, cannot be regarded as an alphabetic literature. It has more of kinship with the cuneiform than either the hieroglyphic or the alphabetic writing.)

Testimony as to the source of the alphabetic writing is available: "The vast majority of alphabets are descended from the so-called Phœnician which is the earliest known, and was in existence near a thousand years B. C., although it was probably influenced by the still more ancient syllabary script of the Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Sumerians on the one hand and the Egyptian pictographs on the other."[49] "The Phœnicians were certainly using it" (the alphabet) "with freedom in the ninth century B. C. According to the view accepted till recently, the alphabet was borrowed by the Phœnicians from the cursive (hieratic) form of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.... The more recent view is that of Dr. A. J. Evans who argues ingeniously that the alphabet was taken over from Crete by the 'Cherethites' and 'Pelethites' or Philistines, who established for themselves settlements on the coasts of Palestine. From them it passed to the Phœnicians, who were their near neighbors, if not their kinsfolk."[50] Of the alphabetic writing Professor Sayce says: "The history of our alphabet is a record of slow stages of growth, through which the idea of _sound_-writing has been evolved. The first effort to record an event, so as to make it widely known, would naturally be to draw a picture of it. A written word, let us remember, is the picture of a sound." And in the same connection, he says that the ancient Phœnicians (because they were the great traders and settlers of the early world) were most in need of a clear, precise, and _communicable_ method of writing. The alphabetic writing was such a method.

The desire and necessity for a medium of _thought-exchange_ that might serve as the means of communicating ideas to persons at a distance, and by means of which information and desires might be exchanged independent of personal contact, probably led to the invention or expedited the development of the alphabetic writing, which differed from both the hieroglyphic and the cuneiform writings. This seems to have been the genesis of the alphabet; and the Phœnicians are commonly regarded as the first to have employed it for this purpose. At any rate an alphabetic form of writing by means of what has been designated an "ideographic alphabet," an alphabet expressing ideas by means of letters (whether original or an inheritance) was in use by the Phœnicians as early as about 1,000 B. C. In the estimate of scholars, all our alphabets (varying in the number of letters, respectively, from twenty-two in the Hebrew to forty-nine in the Sanscrit) have come down to our times, however circuitous may have been the route, by way of the old Phœnicians.

[Explorations recently made in Crete, in which Dr. A. J. Evans has borne a conspicuous part, have revealed a high state of civilization existing there, long anterior to that of Egypt or Assyria, and disclosed "The existence of a highly advanced civilization, going back far behind the historic period." Among other interesting "finds," more than a thousand clay tablets were unearthed in the ancient palace of Cnossos. The great conflagration which long, long ago destroyed the palace served, by baking these tablets, to make them more permanent. These tablets vary in size and shape and the character of their writing, being inscribed "both in pictographic and linear forms of the Minoan script." As based on the results of these explorations, a claim is made for the ante-Phœnician origin of the alphabetic writing there discovered. In accordance with this hypothesis it is held that the Phœnicians only appropriated and developed what had come to them from Crete--what had existed in Crete for centuries previously. But it was no less an important service which the Phœnicians contributed though it be hereafter shown conclusively that they merely appropriated what had descended to them from the earlier Cretan civilization.

These Cretan tablets are, as yet, undecipherable. They are written in an unknown tongue and await the discovery of some bi-lingual text or inscription which shall prove, as in the case of the Rosetta Stone, the line of cleavage to the interpretation of what is, possibly, the earliest of all written languages. The characters of these tablets are varied, consisting of linear writing and of hieroglyphics. Dr. Evans thus sums up the present evidence of the earlier Minoan or pre-Cretan origin of this alphabetic writing: "When we examine in detail the linear script of these Mycenæan documents, it is impossible not to recognize that we have here a system of writing, syllabic and perhaps purely alphabetic, which stands on a distinctly higher level of development than the hieroglyphs of Egypt or the cuneiform script of contemporary Syria and Babylon."[51]]

The earliest alphabetic document, in a language that is decipherable, and the date of which is approximately determinable, is the famous Moabite Stone. This relic of the remote past was discovered in 1868 among the ruins of Dibon by Dr. Klein, a missionary of the Church of England while touring in the region once known as the land of Moab, and whence its designation. The Moabite Stone is a slab of black basalt, nearly four feet high and two feet wide, rounded at the top, and contains an inscription of thirty-four lines cut in Phœnician characters. It is ascribed to the first half of the ninth century B. C. The Stone was intact when discovered though it suffered an attempted destruction by Arabs before it could be removed to a place of safety. The preserved fragments contain six hundred and sixty-nine characters, and many additional characters have been restored from the surviving portions. The inscription on the Stone contains the account of Mesha's breaking away from the rule of Israel and gives striking corroboration of the scripture record (II Kings 3:4-27) and recounts that the king Mesha, after Ahab's death, "rebelled against the king of Israel." "The whole inscription," says Professor Sayce, "reads like a chapter from one of the historical books of the Old Testament. Not only are the phrases the same, but the words and the grammatical forms are, with one or two exceptions, all found in scriptural Hebrew." He adds, further, "The Moabite Stone shows us what were the forms of the Phœnician letters used on the eastern side of the Jordan in the time of Ahab. The forms employed in Israel and Judah on the western side could not have differed much; and we may therefore see in these venerable characters the precise mode of writing employed by the earlier prophets of the Old Testament."[52]