Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/440

Rh most difficult language.' The result was that he thought it was intermediate between the African lani^-uaires and the Proto-Turanian or Finno-U^rian, which he proposed to classify under the name of the uplands of Central Africa, and was the speech of the Akkads or Iliahlanders. From that circumstance it gradually acquired the name of Akkadian, suggested by Hincks.^
 * Eiythean Group/ He considered it came from the

The recovery of this ancient language is among the most interesting? results of cuneiform discovery. The most ancient records in the world are written in it, and it opens a page of history hitherto entirely unknown. It shows that a Turanian race led the van of civilisation, and was the founder of both the religion and literature of the ►Semitic people of Irak.

The first period of discovery was now drawing to a close. The French retired in 18-34, and Colonel Kawlinson in March IS-lo. Nearly twenty years were to elapse before the excavations were renewed by George Smith, in 1873.

]\Ieanwhile the immber of scholars interested h\ tliese siilyects l)egan to increase. Dr. Samuel Birch did irood service in assistiiiu' llie i)ul)li('ation of Lav- ard's inscriptions.- ]\lr. Bosanquet contributed a large number of articles on the questions of cln'onology raised by these new discoveries,^ a matter that also occupied Ixawlinson.^ Ilincks also turned his attention to trans- lation, and it is to him we owe the translations in Mr.

1 ,/. li. A. S. IJeport, June 1866, N.S. ii.

- Trans. S. B. A. 18?^(>, ix., article by Mr. Pinches. Dr. Birch's interest in the subject (bxte.^ from 1H4<), when he wrote on the discovery of the name of Babylon, in Proceeditiya of the Society of Litter ature.

' 8ee Athencf'umy Sept. and Oct. l>^ol; ./. It. A. S. 1854-5, and many others.

"* Athenaeum, March and April, 1854.