Word: babylonians
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...Babylonian Books. Their language and script. Illustrated lecture. Professor Lyon. Jefferson Physical Laboratory...
...BABYLONIAN LECTURES.The remaining topics of Professor Lyon's lectures on "Babylonian Books...
Yesterday afternoon Professor Lyon lectured on the decipherment of the Babylonian books. He said that had Babylonian writings not been found accompanied by parallel translations in some simpler language, they could perhaps never have been deciphered. Such translations were furnished by the records of the Achaemenian kings of Persia. The first problem was therefore to read the old Persian after which the reading of the Babylonian was sure to follow. Inscriptions from Persepolis furnished the material. After the unsuccessful attempts of various scholars, Georg Friederich Grotefend, of Hanover, in 1802, found the key, by applying a formula...
Although the Babylonian inscriptions from Persepolis were translations of the deciphered old Persian, yet the difficulty of the Babylonian script stood in the way of reading the Babyilouian characters. A given sign did not always represent the same sound nor the same idea. One could read the shorter Babylonian inscriptions without knowing how to pronounce a single sign. By degrees it was seen that the various signs were syllables and not letters. From this discovery the work went rapidly forward. In 1857 so much had been written on the subject that the Royal Asiatic Society of London appointed a committee...
...because the great facts of the script and the language are now well known. The working out of the nicer details of the grammar, the enlargement of our knowledge of the vocabulary, the discovery and publication of new books, the interpretation of the multitude of facts contained in the Babylonian books regarding early history, religion and art-these are the delightful tasks before the students of today...