Rawlinson
Rawlinson
6 min read
A British officer and diplomat in the Indian Army, Henry Rawlinson was one of the leading decipherers of cuneiform writing. He copied and translated the trilingual Behistun Inscription, opening the door to the languages of ancient Mesopotamia.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born in 1810 in England, died in 1895
- Copies the Behistun Inscription in Persia starting in 1835
- Publishes the decipherment of Old Persian cuneiform in 1846-1847
- Co-founder of modern Assyriology, member of the Royal Asiatic Society
- British diplomat in Baghdad and Tehran
Works & Achievements
Reconstruction of the long text of Darius I, the first major key to deciphering Achaemenid Persian cuneiform.
Work establishing the values of Babylonian signs, a complex and versatile script, based on the Babylonian column of Behistun.
A series of scholarly articles setting out method and results, foundational to modern Assyriology.
Independent translation of a previously unpublished Assyrian text that proved the reliability of the decipherment before the scientific community.
A geopolitical essay on the Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia (the “Great Game”), reflecting his career as a diplomat and strategist.
A vast collection of cuneiform texts published under his direction at the British Museum, a documentary foundation for Assyriologists.
Anecdotes
To copy the Behistun inscription, carved more than 60 metres up a cliff face, Rawlinson hung from ladders and ropes over the void. The most inaccessible passages were reached thanks to a young Kurdish boy, more nimble, who scaled the rock face to press damp paper onto the stone and take an impression of it.
Rawlinson worked for years on the Old Persian text of Behistun before he even suspected that the two other columns were in Elamite and Babylonian. It was by comparing the names of kings such as Darius, Xerxes and Hystaspes that he was able to assign a sound value to the cuneiform signs.
In 1857, to prove that Babylonian had truly been deciphered, the Royal Asiatic Society sent the same previously unpublished text to four scholars, including Rawlinson, each sealed separately. Their translations largely agreed, which convinced the scientific community that the decipherment was reliable and not an invention.
Before becoming a scholar, Rawlinson was above all an officer: he arrived in Persia in 1835 to reorganise the shah's army. It was while stationed near Kermanshah, at the foot of the Behistun cliff, that he began to take an interest in the mysterious inscriptions of King Darius.
An outstanding polyglot, Rawlinson learned Eastern languages with disconcerting speed. It is said that he could recite long passages of the Quran in Arabic and conversed in Persian, Hindustani and several dialects, which served his diplomatic career as much as his archaeological research.
Primary Sources
The Behistun inscription, carved into the rock by order of Darius, son of Hystaspes, remained illegible: I set out to copy each line so as to recover its reading.
I am Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of Persia, the king of the provinces, son of Hystaspes, the Achaemenid.
The comparative analysis of Babylonian signs shows that a single character could represent several phonetic values, a major difficulty of the decipherment.
The security of the British possessions in India depends on the vigilance with which we monitor Russia's advances in Central Asia.
Key Places
Site of Darius I's trilingual inscription, carved into the rock face. Rawlinson devoted years of perilous surveying here, work that opened the way to deciphering cuneiform.
City near Behistun where Rawlinson was stationed as an officer. Its location allowed him to return regularly to study the cliff.
Rawlinson's post as a British political agent. There he received tablets from the excavations at Nineveh and continued his research on Babylonian.
Assyrian capital whose excavations yielded many cuneiform inscriptions studied by Rawlinson to confirm his readings.
City where Rawlinson published his work, sat in Parliament and on the Council of India, and presided over learned societies. He died there in 1895.
