HISTORICAL NOTES

ABOUT EVOLUTION OF WRITING

Old-Persian Cuneiform Inscription:

Figure 1

The above picture is an excerpt from the Behistun or Darius inscription. They are part of a large monument commissioned by Darius the Great in 515 BC. Located on the 1700 feet high Zargos mountain in North-West Iran on an old dusty caravan road between Babylon and Ectobatana. The monument includes life size sculptures with cuneiform inscriptions in three languages Persian, Elamite (or Susian) and Babylonian about achievements of Darius. It is 300 feet above ground, 60 by 30 feet on the face of a rock wall. After completion of its construction, steps leading to it were chiseled away and thus it was made inaccessible, and well preserved. The Old-Persian cuneiform script that figure 1 shows, was deciphered by Tychen, Munter, Grotefend, Burnouf, Lassen, and mainly by Rawlison. Published in 1846.

Old-Persian Cuneiform Characters.

Figure 2

Obtained after the decipherment of Darius inscription on figure 1 (1846). This roster of cuneiform is yet closer to syllabary than to real alphabet. It was developed from ideographic writing, and was the official script of the Achaemeid dynasty of Persia from 6th century BC until victories of Alexander the Great. Based on neo - Babylonian cuneiform. Some suggest it was the creation of Cyrus the Great (550 - 529 BC). They were in use until the mid 4th century BC. Eventually it declined, because advances of new technology in the way of writing materials were introduced from within the Persian empire like papyrus, skins, and parchments on which cuneiform symbols were difficult to write.

Transition from Picturegraphs to Cuneiform Words.

Early pictograph writing underwent a transformation. At Kish and Uruk , as figures 3a to 3d show, picture elements were drawn with curved lines. Gradually smooth curves, by the time they reached Shuruppak, have completely disappeared. At Shuruppak figure characters were drawn by impressing stylus into soft clay using only straight line impressions. Eventually further simplification has done away altogether with diagonal lines. They went out of use as it is shown in figures 3a and 3b below by the Assyrian period. The Assyrian stock lost most of their resemblance to the original picture elements from where they came from.

As a side note: Assyro- Babylonian literature - between 3000 BC and the birth of Jesus - flourished. They dealt with a great variety of subjects including: science, economics, administration, business, contracts, records, mathematics- square and qube root tables, literature- Gilgamesh epic (2000 BC) about the hero's frutless search for immortality, law- Code of Hammurabi (2067 - 2055 BC) is 4000 lines on property rights, business law, personal protection of the weak (lower ranks of society, slaves, children, woman) against the powerful.

Sumerian cuneiform word signs eventually evolved into syllable sings as they were adopted into other languages, as figure 2 Old-Persian syllabery shows.

Figure 3a

Figure 3b

Selected Names from Babylonian Documents

The following list of names is from the book:

Male-names were part of complete everyday common business transactions records. They were either witnesses to the contracts, or the contractors themselves who were dealing with sons of Murashû. All names were translated from Babylonian cuneiform clay tablets.

I N D E X :

Text Processor

Transliterators

My Shareware

Rovásíró

Történelem

Fordítók