Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/25

xiv Farther investigation showed that it belonged to the Turanian family; and it has received the names of Akkadian and Sumerian. Some vears later the cities of Southern Babylonia were more thoroughly explored, especially Tello, by M. de Sarzec, and the number of inscriptions in this language largely increased. They are found written in a linear or archaic character that evidently preceded the use of cuneiform. The conclusion was soon reached that this Turanian language was the original language of Southern Babylonia, and that the cuneiform writing developed from its ancient script. But still more surprising was the discovery that not merely the writing but the religion and literature of later times descended from this ancient source. An immense collection of tablets has been made from the various libraries of Babylonia and Assyria, upon which a large and varied literature is inscribed. It consists of epic poems, legends of creation, astronomical books, legal judgments and contracts. In the field of religion it comprises magical incantations, hymns and penitential psalms. But it was found that all the most important part of this literature wassimply translated from the Sumerian, and that Assyrian literature proper is limited to the dry and monotonous records of the kings. It is not the least interesting result of these studies to have shown that the Turanian race lies at the back of the civilisation of Western Asia. From them the Semitic races of the valley of the two rivers derived their law, their religion, the legends of their faith, their heroic literature, their science and art, and all the chief elements of their culture. Scarcely less surprising was