X. The Tablet in Cuneiform Script from Yuzghat

Extract

It has more than once been said that the domain of Assyriology is one of surprises, and the more one follows the discoveries which are constantly, but for the most part unobtrusively, being made, the more one becomes convinced of the truth of this statement. The first texts deciphered were those of Persia—important documents for the history of that country, especially the great text of Behistun, gained for students at the risk of his life by that pioneer of research, the late Sir Henry Rawlinson, one of the most illustrious members of this Society, who afterwards brought to light many other important facts in “our glorious science,” as the Germans call the study of Assyrian texts. The reading of this document, with the other trilingual inscriptions of Persia, enabled the tablets found in the palaces of Assyria to be deciphered, and showed that the language was the same as that of the third system of writing in the records of the early Persian kings, opening out a literature which, at the present time, occupies many volumes, and is constantly and steadily increasing.