THE MELAMMU PROJECT http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/ “Expansion of Oriental Studies in the Early 19th Century” KLAUS KARTTUNEN Published in Melammu Symposia 4: A. Panaino and A. Piras (eds.), Schools of Oriental Studies and the Development of Modern Historiography. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project. Held in Ravenna, Italy, October 13-17, 2001 (Milan: Università di Bologna & IsIao 2004), pp. 161-7. Publisher: http://www.mimesisedizioni.it/ This article was downloaded from the website of the Melammu Project: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/ The Melammu Project investigates the continuity, transformation and diffusion of Mesopotamian culture throughout the ancient world. 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KARTTUNEN E XPANSION OF ORIENTAL STUDIES IN THE EARLY 19 TH CENTURY KLAUS KARTTUNEN Helsinki Expansion of Oriental Studies in the Early 19th Century * hile the first roots of Oriental pherment of Old Persian cuneiform writ- studies in the West go back to ing go back to the 1790s, but in the first Wthe 18th century and even ear- decades of the 19th century it was still lier, it is clear that the first half of the possible to put forth the serious claim 19th century is a sort of “Achsenzeit,” that the cuneiform writing in fact con- with important breakthroughs and fun- sists of stylised Cuphic script and ex- damental methodological developments plain a Behistun relief as a representation in almost every field of the wide area of of a cross and twelve apostles. 4 By the studies dealing with the languages and middle of the 19th century, after the civilisations of Asia and North Africa. work of Grotefend, Rawlinson and oth- On a general level, this is seen in the ers, 5 Old Persian was more or less com- growing specialisation: In the 18th cen- pletely understood and the Akkadian and tury and even at the beginning of the the Elamite tablets were already begin- 19th, it was still common that individual ning to reveal their secrets. At the same scholars tried to encompass the whole time, the fieldwork of Botta and Layard vast area in their studies, 1 while by 1850 had initiated Mesopotamian archaeology. 6 everyone hoping to be taken seriously as The centuries of fantastic and entirely a scholar was only representing one or, at erroneous speculation about the character most, two fields. 2 of hieroglyphic writing 7 came to an The beginnings of Grotefend’s 3 deci- abrupt end in 1822 when Champollion * An asterisk before a book title denotes that I have Politik, den Verkehr und den Handel der vor- not seen it myself. Margot Stout Whiting has kindly nehmsten Völker der alten Welt. 1805. corrected my English. 4 A. A. H. Lichtenstein (1753-1816): * Tentamen pa- 1 For instance, the names of Joseph de Guignes laeographiae Assyro-Persicae. 1803; Paul-Ange-Louis (1721-1800), Louis-Mathieu Langlès (1763-1824), de Gardane (1765-1822): * Journal d’un voyage... and Julius von Klaproth (1783-1835) come easily to Paris 1809. mind. 5 Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810-1895). In addi- 2 There still were (and even now are) combinations tion, names such as Rasmus Rask (1787-1832), of such related fields as Egyptology and Assyrio- Eugène Burnouf (1801-1852), Christian Lassen logy, Hebrew and Arabic, Indology and Iranian (1800-1876), Edward Hincks (1792-1866), Félicien studies. (Caignart) de Saulcy (1807-1880), and Jules Oppert 3 Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775-1853). His deci- (1825-1905) deserve to be mentioned here. pherment was first presented to the Göttingische 6 The French Paul-Émile Botta (1802-1870) and the Gelehrte Gesellschaft by the classical scholar and British Henry Austin Layard (1817-1894) both started historian Thomas Christian Tychsen (1758-1834) and excavations in Mesopotamia in the 1840s. published as a summary in Göttingische Gelehrte 7 The most famous figure in the history of this Anzeigen in 1802. The second, more complete ver- speculation is, of course, Father Athanasius Kircher sion, was appended to the second edition of A. H. L. (1601-1680). Heeren’s (1760-1842) famous history, Ideen über die A. Panaino & A. Piras (eds.) MELAMMU SYMPOSIA IV (Milano 2004) ISBN 88-88483-206-3 161 KARTTUNEN E XPANSION OF ORIENTAL STUDIES IN THE EARLY 19 TH CENTURY published his famous Lettre à M. Dacier 8 author. For the sake of brevity, I will just presenting his decipherment of the hiero- refer in passing to the new developments glyphs of the Rosetta Stone. 9 The stone in textual criticism and source analysis, itself was among the finds of Napoleon’s to the ‘Wissenschaft des Judentums,’ to expedition and the publication of the the beginnings of topographical and ar- scholarly results of this expedition, De- chaeological fieldwork in Palestine, 16 as scription de l’Egypte ,10 made ancient well as to the development of compara- Egypt really popular. Before the middle tive Semitic linguistics and of Semitic of the century, Demotic writing had been epigraphy. 17 deciphered by Brugsch 11 and the first The Arabic studies in the West – with archaeological expeditions 12 had laid the some beginnings in the Middle Ages – foundation for Egyptological field re- had started in the 16th century, but after search. the solid foundation laid in the 17th While the roots of Hebrew (and Ara- century, 18 little progress was made and a maic) studies go back to the 16th century critical scholar such as Reiske 19 remained and even earlier 13 – and some valuable a solitary figure. In the beginning of the work was indeed done during the fol- 19th century, Silvestre de Sacy 20 and his lowing centuries 14 – the defective under- numerous pupils initiated a new era char- standing of the true nature of the Semitic acterised by rapid evolution in grammati- languages together with the Biblical idea cal and lexicographical 21 as well as in of Hebrew as the parent of all languages textual and historical studies. 22 had much hampered serious study. The In Iranian studies, too, beside the Old famous Hebräische Grammatik of Ge- Persian cuneiform mentioned above, senius 15 appeared in 1813, three years there were important new developments. after the popular dictionary by the same The Avesta was already known at the end 8 Jean François Champollion le jeune (1790-1832): ginning in 1838. Lettre à M. Dacier, relative à l’alphabet des hiéro- 17 This development did in fact begin in the 18th glyphes phonétiques, employés par les Egyptiens century. Abbé Jean-Jacques Barthélemy (1716-1795) pour inscrire sur leur monuments les noms des presented the decipherment of the Palmyran inscrip- souverains grecs et romains. Paris 1822. tions in 1754 (publ. Mémoires de littérature of the 9 Some preliminary observations were earlier pub- Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 26, 1759; lished by Johan Georg Zoëga (1755-1809), Johan independently also by John Swinton [1703-1777] in David Åkerblad (1763-1819), and Thomas Young *Philosophical Transactions 1754 & 1766) and of (1773-1829). the Phoenicean in 1758 (publ. Ibid. 30, 1764). 10 Description de l’Égypte: ou recueil des observa- 18 Especially the grammar of Thomas Erpenius tions et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte (1584-1624)) in 1613 and the Arabic-Latin dictionary pendant l’Expédition de l’Armée française. Eight of Jacobus Golius (1596-1667) in 1653. volumes of text and 12 of plates, Paris 1809-22. Gen- 19 Johann Jakob Reiske (1716-1774) was a brilliant eral editor was François Jomard (1777-1862). specialist in Greek and Arabic historical literature 11 Heinrich Karl Brugsch (1827-1894). His earlier whom his contemporaries were unable to appreciate. work on the subject was completed in his * Grammaire 20 Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (1758-1838). Note démotique. 1855. that Silvestre is part of the surname. 12 Champollion 1828-29, Lepsius 1842-45, Mariette 21 Silvestre de Sacy: Grammaire arabe. Paris 1810, 1850-54. Georg Wilhelm Freytag (1788-1861): Lexicon Arabico- 13 The most famous names being, perhaps, Johann Latinum. Halle 1830-37. Reuchlin (1455-1522) and Sebastian Münster (1489- 22 At least Étienne Quatremère (1782-1857), Joseph 1552). Toussaint Reinaud (1795-1867), Heinrich Leberecht 14 I have personally found Samuel Bochart’s (1599- Fleischer (1801-1888), and Edward William Lane 1667) learned study Hierozooicon (1661) very useful. (1801-1876; not a pupil of Silvestre de Sacy) deserve 15 Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842). mention here. 16 Especially by Edward Robinson (1794-1863) be- 162 KARTTUNEN E XPANSION OF ORIENTAL STUDIES IN THE EARLY 19 TH CENTURY of the 18th century through the transla- help of Arabic sources, the idea behind tion by Anquetil-Duperron, 23 who had the Uzv reš, which until then had been learnt the language and obtained manu- ununderstandable for scholars. The first scripts in Surat in the 1760s. However, Western edition of a Pahlavi text ( Bun- the majority of scholars received the text dahišn ) was published, again by Wester- translated by Anquetil-Duperron with gaard, in 1851. great suspicion; some even accused the After some preliminary attempts by translator of deliberate deception while missionaries and travellers, the first others explained the Avestan language as flourishing of Indology took place far a sort of corrupt late Sanskrit.