Books On Egypt and Chaldaea: Assyrian Language 1901

This book is intended to form an easy introduction to the study of the cuneiform inscriptions. It contains a short description of the development of the cuneiform characters from picture-writing; it recounts the story of the gradual decipherment of the inscriptions, beginning with the accounts of the early travelers to persepolis, and it traces in detail the method by which Grotefend and Rawlinson obtained the clue to the reading of the inscriptions. A sketch is next given of the system of cuneiform writing and of the use of the characters as syllables and of the use of the characters as syllables and ideograms. The main facts of Assyrian grammar are enumerated in a series of short chapters, and the more important rules are illustrated by brief extracts from Babylonian and Assyrian texts; each extract is printed in cuneiform type and is accomplished by a transliteration and translation.