Empires of the Plain : Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon - Softcover

Adkins,Lesley Adkins

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007129009 ISBN 13: 9780007129003

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2004

Synopsis

At Besitun there is a cliff face covered with a cuneiform inscription set up in 520 BC to record the exploits of the Persian king Darius the Great. In 1835, Henry Rawlinson began the perilous task of recording this inscription. This text tells the story behind the decipherment of cuneiform.

About this title

About the Author:

Lesley Adkins, an archaeologist and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, is the author of several reference books on archaelogy and ancient history, as well as The Keys of Egypt: The Race to Read the Hieroglyphs, the account of the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs by Jean-Francois Champollion, which was published to great acclaim in 2000. She lives in Devon, and is married to Roy Adkins, also an archaeologist and writer.

From Publishers Weekly:

What François Champollion was to Egyptian hieroglyphics, Henry Rawlinson was to Babylonian cuneiform. In 1833 Rawlinson was a brash, courageous and talented young British military officer and amateur philologist posted in Persia. He eagerly—and at great personal risk—devoted himself to the first comprehensive study of the famed cuneiform inscriptions at Bisitun, which covered a remote cliff face as large as a football field, having been commissioned circa 515 B.C. by Darius I of Persia as a personal monument. Over the course of 30 years, punctuated by a breathless succession of military campaigns, political intrigue and instability during which he earned honor and fame, Rawlinson pursued with dogged serenity the deciphering of the cuneiform pictographs. He benefited from the similarly dedicated efforts of a small fraternity of like-minded scholars(though competitive rivalries would embitter the fraternity). Adkins, a British author of several books on archeology and antiquity, admits this biography is limited. Rawlinson the man never comes to life. What must have been a fascinating and even passionate pursuit is only dimly illuminated. Dedicated philologists may rejoice, but for readers seeking a more human story, the man who solved the enigma of cuneiform remains undeciphered. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW, 3 maps.
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About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0007129009
• ISBN 13: 9780007129003
• Binding: Paperback