Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/412

Rh all.' Indeed he is so discoura<]:ed by the difficultv of the task that he is sometimes disposed ' to abandon the study altogether in utter despair of arriving at any satisfactory result.' In consequence of the ])rfusin of ideograms in proper names, he finds that their ' pro- nunciation is a matter of exceeding difliculty, nay, as I think, of absolute impssil)ility ' ; and it was in this department that he achieved the least success. He, however, passes in review many of the principal inscrip- tions that were tlien known, and analvses the contents of each. ^ lie l)egins with the earliest in date, the one taken fnmi the Xorth West Pahic^e at Xineveh, which he ascribes to King Assui-adan-pal — i*eally Assur- natsir-pal. Tie passes on to the insci-iption of his successor, whom he calls Temenbar II. (really Sal- maneserll.), which (covers the Black Obelisk, and it is to it that he devotes the lariifest share of attention.- His aiialysis, partly a verbal translation and partly a summary, fills no less than seventeen pages, and the achievement camiot fail to elicit unqualified admiration. The unfortunate failure to identify a large, proportion of the proper names gives to it an unreal appearance that no doubt strikes the modern student unfiivourablv and mav at first lead him to exao'irerate its deficiencies. If, however, he is careful to remember that it is the first attempt of the kind ever made, his feelings will S(m turn to astonishment that so nuich should have been correctlv made cmt of what had hitherto been absolutelv unintelligible, lie mav nrofitablv compare a few passages with a modern version. For examj)le, Temenbar begins : ' At the commencement of my reign

lUrch.
 * He rtfers to the liritish Museum series recently edited byLayardand

'^ J. li. A. S. \u. 430 ft'. The gnater ])art, if not the whole of the Obelisk inscription was translated bo fore the publication of Lay ardV book in 1849. Layard, Nineifh audits licinains (1849), ii. 192, note,.