Inscriptions
Inscriptions carved on stone have in all ages been regarded by cultivated, and sometimes even by rude nations, as the most enduring monuments of remarkable events. Thus the early patriarch Job would have his dying profession of faith "graven with iron in the rock forever" (Job 19:24). Moses inscribed the law upon stones, and set them up permanently in Mt. Ebal (De 27:2-8; Jos 8:30). SEE PILLAR.
The oldest inscriptions now known to us are the Chinese, which profess to ascend to B.C. 2278. Those of India date only back to B.C. 315, the age of Sandracottus; but it has been thought that the hieroglyphical inscriptions of Central America and of Mexico may prove to be of much older date than those of China even. The Egyptian inscriptions are generally acknowledged to be as old as B.C. 2000; next in order come the Assyrian and Babylonian, reaching nearly as high an antiquity and then follow the Persian, and Median, and Phoenician, ail of about B.C. 700, while the Greek date only to B.C. 500 and 600, and the Etruscan and Roman to no remoter date than the Indian. i.e. B.C. 400-300. The most remarkable of all the known inscriptions are the trilingual inscription of Rosetta, that of Shalmanezer on the obelisk of Nimrud, and the cylinder of Sennacherib; the trilingual inscription of Darius I on the rock at Behistun; the Greek inscription of the soldiers of Psammetichus at Ipsamboul, and of the bronze helmet dedicated by Hiero I to the Olympian Jupiter; the inscription on the coffin of the Cyprian king Asmumazer; the Etruscan inscription called the Eugubine Tables; that of Mummius, the conqueror of Corinth, at Rome, and the will of Augustus at Ancyra; the inscription of the Ethiopian monarch Silco; the old monument of Yu, and the inscription of Se-gan-fu, recording the arrival of Christianity in China (A.D. 631); the inscriptions of. Chandra-gupta and Asoka in India.
I. Egyptian Hieroglyphics. — These are at once the most ancient, the most copious, and the most instructive of all relics of this description extant. The Egyptians used three modes of writing: (1) the Enchorial or Demotic, the common language of the country; (2) the Hieratic, peculiar to the priests; and (3) the Hieroglyphic. Hieroglyphics, again, are of three kinds: (1.) Phonetic, when the hieroglyphic stands for a letter; (2.) Emblematic or Symbulic, when it is an emblem or symbol of the thing represented; (3.) Figurative, when it is a representation of the object itself. The annexed engraving will give some idea of the four different kinds of Egyptian characters; by this it will be seen that in some cases the derivation of the demotic character is to be traced, through its various gradations, from the original pure hieroglyphic, while in others the resemblance is utterly lost. We illustrate this subject by a few examples, pointing out the various meanings attached to the Egyptian characters under different circumstances. The names of the gods were in general expressed by symbols and not by letters; "in the same manner, the Jews never wrote at full length the ineffable name of Jehovah, but always expressed it by a short mark, which they pronounced Adonai." These representations were of two kinds: figurative, in which the name of the deity is implied by the form in which he was represented in his statue, and symbolic, in which a part of the statue, or some object having a reference to the deity, was employed, as for instance:
⇒Bible concordance for INSCRIPTIONS.
Dr. Young and Mr. Tattam have satisfactorily shown that all that has come down to us of the language and literature of ancient Egypt is contained in the Coptic, Sahadic, or Upper Country, and the Basmurico-Coptic dialects, and in the enchorial, hieratic, and hieroglyphic inscriptions and MSS.; and it is a point that cannot be too much insisted upon, that a previous knowledge of the Coptic is absolutely necessary to a correct understanding of the hieroglyphics. SEE HIEROGLYPHICS.
These inscriptions are found abundantly on the various monuments still remaining in Egypt, especially in the tombs and palaces of the several kings. They are found either alone, as documentary records, e.g. on the obelisks and columns; or oftener in connection with pictorial representations of public or private scenes; very rarely, as in the famous Rosetta Stone, with interlinear translations in the corresponding Egyptian or a foreign language. SEE EGYPT.
II. Assyrian Cuneatic. — These characters, like the Egyptian hieroglyphics, are usually inscribed upon slabs containing likewise pictorial delineations of martial, hunting, or other scenes. SEE CUNEIFORM. The most noted places where they occur are at Behistun, Khorsobad. Kouvunjik, and Nimrud. See each in its order. All the great halls of the various palaces are surrounded in the interior with sculptured slabs set into the walls, and covered with representations of the great historical events of the reigns of the respective kings, such as battles, sieges of cities, the conquests of provinces, the building of towns, and of mounds for palaces and temples, processions of captives, caravans bearing tribute from subjected nations, or presents from vassal kings, or taxes from the various districts of the empire, etc. Several hundreds of these have been removed, taken down the Euphrates, and shipped to England and France, and set up in the British Museum, and that of the Louvre at Paris. These slabs vary in size from three to seven feet in breadth, and from five to eleven feet in height and a part even reach thirteen and fifteen feet. Some of them have been brought to our own country, and presented to Amherst and other colleges. These slabs become, as it were, leaves in the Assyrian history. Each chamber, in fact, is a volume; for not only do we have the sculptures, but also inscriptions in a cuneiform or wedge-form letter, which furnishes a commentary on ,the events represented by the artist.. Great progress has already been made in deciphering this language, as we have stated elsewhere, and we have most wonderful and interesting additions to our knowledge of ancient Nineveh (q.v.).
III. Phoenician Records. — These are very fragmentary and widely scattered. They are in characters closely resembling the old Hebrew. Most of them have been diligently collected and expounded by Gesenius in his Monumenta Phanicia (Lpz. 1837). SEE PHOENICIA. A very interesting inscription relating to the history of one of the early Moabitish kings has lately been discovered. SEE AINSHA.
⇒See also the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
IV. Sinaitic Inscriptions. — Wady Mokatteb, the cliffs of which bear these inscriptions, is a valley entering wady Sheik, and bordering on the upper regions of the Sinai Mountains. It extends for about three hours' march, and in most places its rocks present abrupt cliffs twenty or thirty feet high. From these cliffs large masses have separated and lie at the bottom in the valley. The cliffs and rocks are thickly covered with inscriptions, which are continued, at intervals of a few hundred paces only, for at least the distance of two hours and a half. Burckhardt says that to copy all of them would occupy a skilful draughtsman six or eight days. The inscriptions are very rudely executed, sometimes with large letters, at others with small, and seldom with straight lines. The characters appear to be written from right to left; and, although not cut deep, an instrument of metal must have been required, as the rock is of considerable hardness. Some of them are on rocks at a height of twelve or fifteen feet, and must have required a ladder to ascend to them. The characters were not known. The superior of the Franciscans, who visited the place in 1722, observes: "Although we had among us men who understood the Arabian, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Armenian, Turkish, English, Illyrian, German, and Bohemian languages, there was not one of us who had the slightest knowledge of the characters engraved in these hard rocks with great labor in a country where there is nothing to be had either to eat or drink. Hence it is probable that these characters contained some profound secrets, which, long before the birth of Jesus Christ, were sculptured in these rocks by the Chaldaeans or some other persons." This account excited profound attention in Europe; and it was thought by many that the inscriptions might have been formed by the Israelites during their stay in this region, and probably contained irrefragable evidence for the truth of the Mosaic history. Hence copies of them have been anxiously sought and secured; but, with the exception of a few in Greek, the character and language were still unknown. "Before they can be all deciphered," says Laborde, "greater progress than has yet been attained must be made in the paleography and ancient languages of the East. The most general opinion is that they were the work of pilgrims who visited Sinai about the 6th century." This seems to us very doubtful. The Greek inscriptions and the crosses, on which this conclusion chiefly rests, may indeed have been of that or a later age; but it does not follow that those in the unknown characters necessarily were so too. — Kitto, Pict. Bible, note on Job 19:24. Rev. Charles Forster contends that they are records of the Israelites on their way from Egypt to Palestine (Sinai Photographed, London, 1862, fol.). Better opportunities than had formerly been at the command of casual travelers were enjoyed by captain Palmer, a member of the expedition now employed in making a complete and exhaustive survey of the physical features and condition of the Sinaitic region. His collection of transcripts from wady Mokatteb and other localities exceeds 1500 in number, and he was much aided in the study of their meaning by finding several undoubted bilingual inscriptions were the Greek and Sinaitic characters occur together, and express the same meaning. The result of four months' steady devotion to this object has given a complete alphabet of the latter, so that captain Palmer can read and interpret any of the inscriptions with ease. Both the alphabet and language must have been employed by a late Shemitic people "in all probability a commercial community who inhabited, or at least colonized, the Peninsula for the first few centuries of the Christian era." That many of the writers were Christians is proved by the numerous Christian signs used by them; but it is equally clear, from internal evidence, that a large proportion of them were pagans. It is interesting to note that captain Palmer's researches were pursued without the knowledge of professor Beers's studies, though they mainly corroborate each other, and he bears testimony to the professor's acuteness and penetration. A writer in the Princeton Review (Oct. 1870), after giving the history of the discovery and decipherment of these inscriptions, thus concludes: "It seems to be ascertained that the writers were natives of Arabia Petraea, inclusive of the Sinaitic peninsula; and, whether they were subjects of the kingdom centering in Petra or not, they made use of the language and the mode of writing current there. They were neither Jews not Christians, but worshippers of heathen deities, and particularly of the heavenly bodies. They were mostly pilgrims on their way to certain celebrated sanctuaries, which were for centuries resorted to at special seasons by the pagans resident in this region. The inscriptions in the old native character belong to the period immediately preceding and following the Christian era; and they come down to the time when the Gospel and the Christian Church penetrated these localities, supplanted heathenism, and suppressed its sanctuaries. They then yield to legends in Greek and Latin, and even more recent tongues, the work of Christians, who, in imitation of their heathen predecessors, have left the record of their pilgrimage to hallowed spots graven on the same imperishable works."' Hence we find crosses and other marks of Christianity mingled in the pagan names and symbols. Similar inscriptions have been found scattered, but not so profusely, nor in such confusion in various other portions of the Sinaitic peninsula, and even in the outskirts of Palestine. (See the literature in the Princeton Review, ut sup.) SEE SINAI.
