Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon by Lesley Adkins

Author:Lesley Adkins [Adkins, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2004-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen: An Irish Intruder

A whole month of digging at Nineveh produced only a few fragments of sculpture and cuneiform inscriptions, and so Layard decided to return to Nimrud, employing thirty men to dig in the north-west palace, though with no further finance. More sculptured reliefs were uncovered, as well as colossal bulls and lions, some broken into pieces. ‘As I advance further into the mound’, he informed his aunt, ‘the sculptures become more perfect in preservation, and superior in execution to those in the chambers on the edge of the building … God knows when the ramification of rooms and passages will stop. The discovery is already beginning to make a noise in Europe, and every post brings me letters from people wanting information and offering (scientific) assistance. I only hope that as much interest will be excited in England as on the Continent, and that the Government will not be able to back out of the matter.’1 Rawlinson confessed to Layard: ‘Sir Stratford’s parsimony is to me quite inexplicable. What was the like of a Firman [permit] without funds? If I were you I would ask his Excellency’s leave to send home a prospectus in order to obtain voluntary contributions from the Societies and patrons of art in England … I believe you might get a couple of thousand Pounds subscribed in England at any rate.’2

By now the assault on the Cadi had been forgotten, and writing to Layard on 24 June 1846, Rawlinson expressed his pleasure that the ‘business has taken so satisfactory a turn. I drew my inferences from the sensation created here – nothing else was talked about at Baghdad for a week after the news arrived.’3 Rawlinson himself, struggling to understand Elamite and Babylonian cuneiform, continued his letter by telling Layard that he had no idea how they would ever work out the Babylonian language: ‘No doubt the Median and Babylonian alphabets are very nearly allied and the phonetic structure of the two languages is almost identical. I can read pretty well to my satisfaction all the Inscriptions Median as well as Babylonian given by Westergaard – but this does not enable me by any means to understand a [single] Babylonian Inscription, of which I have not [achieved] a [single] translation. The language as I have often told you has to be reconstructed “ab origine”. It is in my opinion utterly unknown – correspondents do not exist in any available speech, Semitic, Arian or Scythic – so how we are ever to interpret it with anything like certainty I am at a loss to divine.’4

Almost nineteen years had passed since Rawlinson had left England, with service in India, Persia, Afghanistan and now Baghdad. He very much hoped to return home on leave, and it seems incredible that it was disallowed, as he told Layard in early July: ‘I regret to say that my leave has after all been refused. The Court of Directors [of the East India Company] say the thing is an absolute impossibility unless I vacate the Residency which I cannot afford to do at present.

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