Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/42

 22 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALD.EA AND ASSYRIA. the Egyptian hieroglyphs and of the oldest Chinese characters. There are no texts extant in which images are exclusively used, 1 but we can point to a few where the ideograms have preserved their primitive forms sufficiently to enable us to recognize their origin with certainty. Among those Assyrian syllabaries which have been so helpful in the decipherment of the wedges, there is one tablet where the primitive form of each symbol is placed opposite the group of strokes which had the same value in after This tablet is, however, quite exceptional, and, as a rule, the cuneiform characters cannot thus be traced to their primitive form. But well-ascertained and independent facts allow us to come to certain conclusions which even this scanty evidence is enough to confirm. In inventing the process of writing and bringing it to perfection, the human intellect worked on the same lines among the Turanians of Chaldaea as it did everywhere else. The point of departure and the early stages have been the same for all peoples, although some have stopped half-way and others when three-fourths of the journey were complete. The supreme discovery which should crown the effort is the attribution of a special sign to each of the elementary articulations of the human voice. This final object, an object towards which the most gifted nations of antiquity were working for so many centuries, was just missed by the. Egyptians. They were, we may say, wrecked in port, and the glory of creating 1 We are told that there is an inscription at Susa of this character. It has been examined but not as yet reproduced. We can, therefore, make no use of it. See Francois LENORMANT, Manuel d 1 Histoire ancienne, vol. ii. p. 156. - M. LENORMANT reproduces this tablet in his Histoire ancienne de f Orient (9th edition, vol. i. p. 420). The whole of the last chapter in this volume should be carefully studied. It is well illustrated, and written with admirable clearness. The same theories and discoveries are explained at greater length in the introduction to M. LENORMANT'S great work entitled Essai sttr la Propagation de I' Alphabet phenicien, .of which but one volume has as yet appeared (Maisonneuve, Svo., 1872). At the very commencement of his investigations M. OPPERT had called attention to the curious forms presented by certain characters in the oldest inscriptions. See Expedition scientifique de Mesopotamie, vol. ii. pp. 62, 3, notably the paragraph entitled Online Hi'eroglyphique de FEcriture anarienne. The texts upon which the remarks of MM. Oppert and Lenormant were mainly founded were published under the title of Early Inscriptions from Chaldcea in the invaluable work of Sir Henry RAWLINSON {A Selection from the Historical Inscriptions of Chaldaa, Assyria, and Babylonia^ prepared for publication by Major-General Sir Henry Rawlinson, assisted by Edwin Norris, British Museum, folio, 1861).