Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURING 19TB CENTURY: HITTITES 771
so. Unfortunately for himself, he identified with the last
another symbol with quite
a different meaning, — the symbol
for "country," — thus raising a barrier which made further
advance impossible.
Curiously enough, once before he
had guessed the meaning of this same sign correctly, though
it is true accidentally, and on quite untenable ground. Any
further contributions of Sayce towards the deciphering
of the inscriptions are quite arbitrary and without foundation.
No essential advance was made by Sayce's successors,
namely Ball, 1 Menant, 2 Peiser, 3 and Halevy. 4 It should
be mentioned, however, that Halevy is correct, though
accidentally so, in taking (independently from my own researches)
a symbol, which can apparently be added or left
out at pleasure after that for me, to represent the vowel e.
The rest we may pass over in silence. In the works of
the
above mentioned scholars a wild logic runs riot, and its
extravagances call
for no description.
Peiser took a direction quite different from that of the
other decipherings, in the main confining himself to the
seal-inscriptions found in Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh.
These he arbitrarily attributed to Hittite kings, and as Sennacherib
in his cuneiform inscriptions had omitted to preserve
us the names of such, he assigned them in the same
arbitrary fashion to two kings belonging to the time of his
predecessors, Tiglathpileser III. and Sargon. Since these
hypotheses which form the basis of his argument are absolutely
groundless throughout, and the names of other
couples of " Hittite " kings of the same period, according to
Peiser's method of reasoning, would have suited the inscrip-
1
In the " Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology," vol. x.,
pp. 437, seqq.
2
Memoires de FAcademie des Inscriptions, vol. xxxiv., pp. I, seqq.
3
Die Hettitischen Inschriften.
4
Revue S'emitique, vol. i., pp. 55, seqq., and 126, seqq.