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Returning to Shuster, Rawlinson wrote to his brother George of his disappointment at the lack of military action: ‘I have marched to this place (Shuster) in command of a force of three thousand men, intending to attack and plunder the country of a rebellious mountain chief; but now that we are near his fort he shows the white feather, and wants to come to terms.’
(#litres_trial_promo) He acknowledged to his brother that the time nevertheless passed pleasantly, because he could indulge two of his passions – shooting game and visiting antiquities: ‘I am in a country abounding both with game and antiquities, so that, with my gun in hand, I perambulate the vicinity of Shuster, and fill at the same time my bag with partridges and my pocket-book with memoranda.’
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It had been nearly nine years since Rawlinson had left England, and at times he felt isolated and missed the close relationship with his family, as he confided gloomily in the long letter to George: ‘The only evil is the difficulty of communicating with any other civilised place from this said province of Khuzistan; it is nine months since I heard from England, and three since I heard from either Teheran or Baghdad, so that I am completely isolated and utterly ignorant of what is going on in any of the other regions of the globe. News from England I am particularly anxious for.’
(#litres_trial_promo) Moreover, friendships with other soldiers were proving to be ephemeral: ‘India has now ceased to be of any interest to me. I have few correspondents there, and each letter that I receive tells me a fresh tale of the worthlessness of worldly friendships. C—, who was wont to call himself my particular friend and chum, has never once written to me since he returned to India; and all my other quondam cronies have equally fallen off. But “out of sight, out of mind” is an old proverb, and I have no right, therefore, to complain of any particular grievance in my case.’
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Rawlinson wrote to members of his family constantly, but whether or not they received his letters seemed a matter of chance. He explained to his brother how his latest letter would, if it survived, make its way to England: ‘From Shuster my letter is to be conveyed to Bussorah [Basra], from thence to Baghdad by another courier, then to Constantinople, and then put in the Vienna post-bag, so that, if the document reaches you safe and sound after all this chopping and changing, you must consider that Mercury [messenger of the Roman gods] has an especial favour for you.’
(#litres_trial_promo) All Rawlinson wanted to do now was to return to England on leave once he had served ten years with the East India Company, intending to immerse himself in study at Oxford and Cambridge for three years: ‘Next year [1837], however, when my ten years expire, I shall certainly come home on furlough, unless in the interim some kind angel slips me into a caldron, like Medea’s, and wipes off the corrosion of nine glowing summers. So look out for a nice cheap lodging at Oxford, where (and at Cambridge) I think I shall pass most of my three years for the sake of consulting the classical and Oriental works which are there alone procurable, and a reference to which is absolutely necessary before I can prepare for publication my papers on the comparative geography of the countries which I am now visiting.’
(#litres_trial_promo) His longing to return home came to nothing, as he became too immersed in affairs in Persia.
Six weeks were spent in the vicinity of Shuster and Dizful, but in mid-May Rawlinson left the regiment and returned to Kermanshah using a shorter, more difficult route through the mountains of Luristan, accompanied by only a few other soldiers on horseback, without the burden of baggage mules. At one point they passed a ‘very lofty range, called Sar Kushtí, where the Lurs suppose the ark of Noah to have rested after the Flood’.
(#litres_trial_promo) After eleven days, dogged by attacks of fever, they reached Bisitun, from where it was a short ride back to Kermanshah.
For the next few weeks Rawlinson applied himself to his cuneiform studies, looking first at the Elwand inscriptions, but he soon realized that, with only these short inscriptions to work on, he was unlikely to make much progress. He therefore made the decision to try to copy the trilingual inscription at Bisitun.
Six: Bewitched by Bisitun (#ulink_b7d96e6d-0ec3-56e9-b3e5-d053e6d59a29)
The imposing appearance of Bisitun greatly impressed Rawlinson, who considered it ‘a very remarkable natural object on the high road between Ecbatana and Babylon … The rock, or, as it is usually called by the Arab geographers, the mountain of Behistun, is not an isolated hill, as has sometimes been imagined. It is merely the terminal point of a long, narrow range which bounds the plain of Kermanshah to the eastward. This range is rocky and abrupt throughout, but at the extremity it rises in height, and becomes a sheer precipice.’
(#litres_trial_promo) It is, in fact, the end of a ridge of peaks of the Zagros mountain range, where the limestone rock rises dramatically to a height of 1,700 feet above the plain, with the inscription of Darius the Great carved at a height of over 200 feet. The monument appears small in relation to the mountain, yet it is over 25 feet tall and 70 feet wide, and the panel of relief sculptures alone is nearly 18 feet wide and 10 feet high.
The massive monument was made as an extensive inscription surrounding relief sculptures of Darius and his defeated prisoners. Although the inscription was trilingual (written in three scripts and three languages) it was not originally designed as such. The inscriptions Rawlinson had already seen at Persepolis were intended to be trilingual from the outset, as was the Rosetta Stone in Egypt with its three different scripts (although technically bilingual, with just two languages), whereas the Bisitun monument evolved gradually. The monument did not overlook the plain, but was carved on the south-facing wall of a cleft in the mountain. A natural pathway originally led to the spot chosen by Darius, and once the rock surface was cut back and dressed smooth with iron chisels, the work of carving and engraving could begin.
At first, Darius intended the relief sculpture as the centrepiece, with inscriptions placed symmetrically round the figures. For the inscriptions, the rock face was lightly engraved with guidelines about 1½ inches (possibly two fingers’ width) apart. The sculptured panel was started early in 520 BC, and four columns of Elamite cuneiform inscription, a total of 323 lines, were added to the right. Because Rawlinson did not know the origins of this type of cuneiform, he used the term ‘Median’, after the Medes who once inhabited this area, as well as ‘Scythic’, thinking it may have originated with the Scythic tribe of the Russian steppes. ‘Susian’ replaced these terms, after the city of Susa that Rawlinson had recently visited. Finally, ‘Elamite’ was introduced after the earliest known name for the region, and that term is still used today.
In 519 BC, only months after the carving of the relief sculpture and Elamite inscription, a Babylonian inscription was added to the left, on an overhanging rock face. It was carved in a single column nearly 14 feet high and consisted of 112 lines of cuneiform, some of which are themselves over 13 feet long: the engraver clearly misjudged this task, as it should have been split into two columns. Later that same year the Old Persian inscription was added, in four columns of cuneiform, totalling 378 lines, which were engraved immediately below the relief sculpture, although the fourth column extended beneath the Elamite inscription, perhaps where the engraver misjudged his calculations in laying out the text. Although this was a translation of the Elamite text, minor changes and omissions were made, and an additional paragraph was incorporated towards the end, which related how the Old Persian cuneiform was a new form of writing, that this was the first time it had ever been used, and how copies and translations of the Bisitun text were being circulated throughout the Persian Empire. No room was available to add this extra paragraph to the main body of the Elamite inscription, but instead it appeared as a detached inscription above the relief sculptures. It was never added to the Babylonian, even though there was room.
Another figure of a defeated rebel, Skunkha, was added to the relief sculptures in 518 BC, necessitating the obliteration of part of the first column of the Elamite text. Incredibly, Darius ordered a copy of the entire Elamite inscription to be meticulously carved to the left of the Old Persian inscription, below the Babylonian, this time as three columns totalling 260 lines. At the same time a short fifth column giving an account of his new military victories was added to the end of the Old Persian, and the rock surface with the first Elamite inscription was smoothed so that it was barely visible.
Once all the inscriptions were finished, the monument was made as inaccessible as possible, including quarrying away the mountain path, to reduce the risk of vandalism. From the plain below, the inscriptions were too far away to be read, and through succeeding generations the meaning of the monument was lost. In ancient Greek times it became known as Bagistanon, ‘a place of the gods’, which gave rise to its Persian name of Bisitun (or Bisotun or Behistun), meaning literally ‘without columns’.
Early European travellers noticed the site, but did not understand it. Over a decade before Rawlinson arrived at Kermanshah, the artist and traveller Robert Ker Porter made the first recorded ascent, though seemingly not to the actual ledge below the inscriptions: ‘I could not resist the impulse to examine it nearer … To approach it at all, was a business of difficulty and danger; however, after much scrambling and climbing, I at last got pretty far up the rock, and finding a ledge, placed myself on it as firmly as I could.’
(#litres_trial_promo) He was initially interested in the relief sculptures, not the inscriptions beneath, commenting: ‘but still I was farther from the object of all this peril, than I had hoped; yet my eyes being tolerably long-sighted, and my glass [telescope] more so, I managed to copy the whole sculpture.’
(#litres_trial_promo) Porter’s drawing was reasonably accurate, and he also made notes about the inscriptions beneath the sculptures: ‘the excavation is continued to a considerable extent, containing eight deep closely written columns [the Elamite and Old Persian] in the same character. From so much labour having been exerted on this part of the work, it excites more regret that so little progress has yet been made towards deciphering the character; and most devoutly must we hope that the indefatigable scholars now engaged in the study of these apparently oldest letters in the world may at last succeed in bringing them to an intelligible language. In that case what a treasure-house of historical knowledge would be unfolded here.’
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To copy the inscriptions at Bisitun would be, Porter believed, an enormous undertaking: ‘to transcribe the whole of the tablets, could I have drawn myself up sufficiently high on the rock to be within sight of them, would have occupied me more than a month. At no time can it ever be attempted without great personal risk; yet I do not doubt that some bracket on the surface might be found, to admit a tolerably secure seat for some future traveller, who has ardour and time, to accomplish so desirable a purpose.’
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In the early summer of 1836, Rawlinson used every spare minute to make repeated climbs up to the narrow ledge below the inscriptions and copy the initial lines of the first column of the Old Persian. He had deduced that there were three different types of cuneiform, as on the Elwand inscriptions, and he chose to start with the Old Persian script that appeared the most simple. Nobody had ever before managed to climb right up to these inscriptions, let alone record them, and even four years later the artist Eugène Flandin found the task virtually impossible. He and an architect, Pascal Coste, had been instructed by the French government to copy all the ancient monuments and inscriptions of Persia, and in July 1840 Flandin went on his own to Bisitun. He managed to climb to the ledge, but once there he found it impossible to move. His description of the ascent and descent is in stark contrast to Rawlinson’s understated record of the climb, and highlights Rawlinson’s nerve and mountaineering skills: ‘Mount Bi-Sutoun rises up in a pyramidal shape, black and savage,’ began Flandin. ‘It is one of the highest summits of the chain. The bas-relief, set in a reflex angle of the mountain … is only seen with great difficulty from below. In order to draw it, it is necessary to get close up by climbing some of the blocks that litter the foot of the mountain, which can be done up to a certain height. There then remains quite a great height still, so that it is necessary to use a telescope. The steep rock slope below this sculpture makes access almost impossible, so aiding its preservation … I wanted to try to get to the inscriptions that I had only been able to see from the foot of the mountain … I folded up my tent in the evening and I left for Bi-Sutoun [from Taq-i Bustan] … and crossed the lonely plain, and, keeping straight ahead, I went alongside the foot of the mountains. The day had been very stormy. The summits of Mount Bi-Sutoun were covered with great reddish clouds … The thunder rumbled across their thick layers … the flashes of lightning were recurring like prolonged echoes.’
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The moon then rose, dispersing the clouds and, Flandin wrote, ‘its silver light, spread over the mountain, changed the savage and sad colours that the leaden clouds had given to the rocks of Bi-Sutoun into fantastic and strange effects. I had returned to Bi-Sutoun with the intention of copying the inscriptions. I was hoping to succeed by using two ladders that I had brought from Kermanshah and was counting on putting the two together. By placing them as high as possible on the rocks, I was hoping to reach a little ledge that was at the level of the engraved tablets. But a vain hope … What to do? It was absolutely impossible without a specially constructed scaffolding, and positioning it would have encountered great obstacles. Besides … I had no wood, no ropes, and the region had no workman who could put it together.’
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Nevertheless, Flandin was determined to reach the inscriptions. ‘I wanted to make an attempt’, he explained, ‘to try to climb the polished and perpendicular rocks by the aid of some fissures that afforded a means of support. I left my shoes, so as not to slip, I hung on by my hands and feet to all the rough patches that I was able to seize hold of. In this way I climbed the rock with difficulty, stopping after each burst in order to prepare for a new exertion, and fearing, with every movement, that I would be hurtled to the bottom. I don’t know how long it took to get to my goal, but it seemed to me to be a long time, and I was fearing I would not succeed when I felt under my hand the edge of the ledge. Not before time, because my tired, grazed fingers had no more strength to haul me up … I had bloody feet and hands. At last I was on the projecting rock, below the inscriptions that I could clearly see. I took a quick breath, after which I examined the engraved tablets. What sorrow I had, after going to so much trouble, on realizing that it was impossible to take a copy. This impossibility resulted from the height that they were still at, as well as the narrowness of the ledge on which I found myself forced against the rock, without being able to move back a single inch. I had therefore climbed the mountain for nothing, and the reward for my troubles was that I could only state simply that the inscriptions are all cuneiform, engraved in seven columns, each containing 99 lines, and that above the figures, there are several more little groups of similar characters.’
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Flandin might have been even more despondent if he had known that Rawlinson had already recorded all this information – and much more besides. ‘But that wasn’t all,’ Flandin complained, ‘the most difficult thing was to return back down. I was at a height of 25 metres, and I could not think of any way of climbing down other than backwards, taking hold of and gripping the rock with my fingernails, as I had done in climbing up: this was really like the gymnastics of a lizard. I was therefore very happy to reach the bottom, but wounded, cut by the sharp angles of stones, completely torn and bloody.’
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Several years later, in 1850, Rawlinson recorded that the task of climbing this precipice was not especially challenging: ‘Notwithstanding that a French antiquarian commission in Persia described it a few years back to be impossible to copy the Behistun inscriptions, I certainly do not consider it any great feat in climbing to ascend to the spot where the inscriptions occur. When I was living in Kermanshah fifteen years ago, and was somewhat more active than I am at present, I used frequently to scale the rock three or four times a day without the aid of a rope or ladder: without any assistance, in fact, whatever.’
(#litres_trial_promo) With the age-old rivalry between the French and English, Rawlinson was doubtless playing down the daunting task, but the very fact that he had the skill and stamina to repeat such a climb, day after day, speaks for itself.
By mid-summer 1836, Rawlinson had sufficient cuneiform copied to be able to compare the Elwand and Bisitun inscriptions. Although he had not yet seen Grotefend’s publication, he later realized that he followed the same method of analysis of working out values of cuneiform signs, because he deduced that the Persian equivalents of the names Hystaspes, Darius and Xerxes would be present in the inscription: ‘It would be fatiguing to detail the gradual progress which I made … The collation of the two first paragraphs of the great Behistun Inscription with the tablets of Elwend supplied me, in addition to the names of Hystaspes, Darius, and Xerxes, with the native forms of Arsames, Ariaramnes, Teispes, Achaemenes, and Persia, and thus enabled me to construct an alphabet which assigned the same determinate values to eighteen characters that I still retain after three years of further investigation.’
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He wrote to his sister Maria in early July of his ambitions and progress: ‘My antiquarian studies go on quietly and smoothly, and despite the taunt which you may remember once expressing of the presumption of an ignoramus like myself attempting to decypher inscriptions which had baffled for centuries the most learned men in Europe, I have made very considerable progress in ascertaining the relative value of the characters.’
(#litres_trial_promo) Since his stay in Baghdad a few months earlier, he no longer felt so isolated: ‘Now that I am assisted by the erudition of my neighbour Colonel Taylor of Baghdad, the best scholar living probably in the ancient languages of the East, I aspire to do for the cuneiform alphabet what Champollion has done for the hieroglyphics – when you hear the archaeologists of Europe enquire who this Rawlinson is who has shed so extraordinary a light over ancient history both sacred and profane, you will probably feel a thrill of greater pleasure than in acknowledging yourself the sister of the madcap … My character is one of restless, insatiable ambition – in whatever sphere I am thrown my whole spirit is absorbed in an eager struggle for the first place – hitherto the instability of youth has defeated all my ends, but now that advancing years are shedding their quietizing influence over my mind, I trust to be able to concentrate my energies as to proceed steadily and surely to the goal … I am now therefore compelled to rest upon my oars until the arrival of the works I have commissioned from England opens a new field to my enquiry or I can steal a fortnight’s leave to gallop to Baghdad and cull fresh honey from the treasures of Col. Taylor’s library.’
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His studies were brought to an abrupt halt in the late summer when he was ordered to march his regiment of Guran Kurds to Tehran to join Muhammed Shah’s forces, who were ready to subjugate unruly tribes in the north-east. He left Kermanshah in August, and at the Shah’s camp near Tehran he was allowed to retain command of the Gurans: ‘I paraded the new Regiment before the Shah to his extreme delight as it was composed of good fighting Kurds – who had never before been at the Royal head Quarters.’
(#litres_trial_promo) The army moved on to the frontier with Afghanistan, but it was discovered that the Shah’s real intention was to besiege the Afghan city of Herat once again – his earlier siege having broken up after the death of Fath Ali Shah. An outbreak of cholera provided the excuse for the British detachment to withdraw immediately.
Rawlinson made his way to Tehran where he spent a few days, until ordered to rejoin Bahram Mirza who was camped near Isfahan. Shortly afterwards they returned to Kermanshah, reaching the town in late November, and the following month his sergeant, George Page, was married with Rawlinson’s consent to an Armenian woman by the name of Anna. Because his troops were sent back to their homes for the winter, Rawlinson was now able to concentrate on his cuneiform studies. With access to a library at Tehran he had managed to become acquainted for the first time with the research of Grotefend and Saint-Martin and was fairly dismissive of their work. ‘I found the Cuneiform alphabets and translations which had been adopted in Germany and France,’ he noted, ‘but far from deriving any assistance from either of these sources, I could not doubt that my own knowledge of the character, verified by its application to many names which had not come under the observation of Grotefend and Saint Martin, was much in advance of their respective, and in some measure conflicting, systems of interpretation.’
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Unfortunately, rather than announce his own results on Old Persian, Rawlinson admitted he did not feel sufficiently confident to do so: ‘As there were many letters, however, regarding which I was still in doubt, and as I had made very little progress in the language of the inscriptions, I deferred the announcement of my discoveries, until I was in a better condition to turn them to account.’
(#litres_trial_promo) So far, he had worked out the values of eighteen signs, using proper names such as Darius, but had not managed to translate anything. The decipherment of cuneiform was a twofold process: transliteration and translation. First of all, it was necessary to work out what the signs meant – did they represent a single alphabetical letter, a syllable or a whole word? Once this was established, they were converted or transliterated to a Roman alphabet, and the resulting foreign words could be translated, but for this a knowledge of related languages, dead and living, was essential. The process is the same as, for example, the ancient Greek
being transliterated to pente and then translated as ‘five’.
By now, Rawlinson knew enough about the problems of cuneiform decipherment to realize that what was hindering progress was the lack of a long inscription; the obvious solution was to copy as much as possible of the nearby Bisitun monument. Early in 1837 he began to make daily visits there from Kermanshah to gather more lines of the Old Persian inscription. He was unable to copy every line, because parts were severely eroded or inaccessible, but while perched on the narrow ledge on the cliff face he did succeed in copying the entire first column, the opening paragraph of the second, ten paragraphs of the third column, and four separate inscriptions accompanying the relief sculptures – in all, over two hundred lines of Old Persian cuneiform. At this stage, Rawlinson may have used a telescope to help copy the upper parts of this 12-foot-high inscription, as he does not mention ladders.
This work was brought to a halt again because Bahram Mirza, under whom Rawlinson had been serving for nearly two years, fell out of favour with his brother the Shah and was recalled to Tehran, to be replaced in February by a Georgian eunuch called Manuchar Khan. Problems immediately arose from the appointment of this new governor, who was hated and feared for his cruelty. In March, Rawlinson was ordered by the Persian government at Tehran to prepare five regiments, each with over a thousand men, in readiness for service, and so he wrote to Manuchar Khan for assistance and support in recruiting, drilling, clothing and equipping troops. Receiving only evasive replies and being pressed by the Prime Minister, he complained directly to Tehran, sending copies of his correspondence. Manuchar Khan was reprimanded, and Rawlinson was ordered by the Shah himself to despatch two regiments to the capital when ready.
Although Rawlinson appeared to be hard-working and professional, he held a harsher view of himself, as seen in his private journal entry written at Kermanshah on 11 April, his twenty-seventh birthday. ‘Let me probe my soul to the quick,’ he began. ‘What am I and what am I likely to become? In character, unsteady, indolent but ambitious – in faith – a direct infidel – in feelings callous as a stone – in principle like my neighbours, neither too good nor too bad – with some talent and more reputation for it – culpably wasteful and extravagant and incapable of forming and adhering to any fixed purpose on a single subject.’
(#litres_trial_promo) It is noticeable, though, that in assessing his prospects, his army career was not mentioned, being evidently of far lesser importance to him than his studies. ‘I am now engaged in a circle of study so vested with Oriental literature and archaeology, but I suspect I am too volatile to enable me to distinguish myself in a faith which of all others requires clever and diligent attention … I have no fixed aim for myself, but I write and read with a sort of instinctive longing to do something to attract the attention of the world.’
(#litres_trial_promo) Far removed from the eyes of his superiors, Rawlinson noted in this journal entry that a female companion (certainly a local woman) ‘enlivens my solitude, and I have never yet even put it to myself whether such a connection is criminal or not’.
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In mid-May Rawlinson left Kermanshah for the hills to assemble troops from the Guran inhabitants, but only a few days later was ordered by Manuchar Khan to engage in military action on the Turkish border near Zohab, as Persian merchants had been attacked by marauding tribes. With 1,500 cavalry and foot soldiers, he headed into a difficult situation, and after some exchange of fire and loss of life, Rawlinson was forced to remain there for three weeks to attempt to resolve the problem diplomatically. Impressing on Manuchar Khan that the British government did not allow him to fight Turkish subjects, he was instructed to return to Kermanshah, and for the last two weeks of June he prepared one new regiment for departure to Tehran. He repeatedly warned Manuchar Khan that the troops should be paid, but to no avail, and it was no surprise when they deserted and returned to their homes in the hills and mountains. The tribal chiefs were induced by Manuchar Khan to send back the recruits, and Sergeant Page was ordered to accompany them to Tehran two weeks later, with the expectation of appealing to the Shah for settlement of their arrears of pay. On arriving at the capital, the Shah had already left for his campaign, so once again the troops mutinied and returned to their homes.
Rawlinson had remained in Kermanshah to collect together the second regiment, but warned Manuchar Khan that these troops were disaffected because they had been badly treated when serving with the Shah in north-east Persia the year before. At a critical moment, Rawlinson went down with an attack of malaria, and the troops took a solemn oath not to march to Tehran, and then deserted. He was sent to bring them back, but once aware of their oath, he realized it was an impossible situation. On 1 September he received an order from the Shah to join the royal camp immediately, but for Rawlinson, now obsessed with cuneiform, the first priority was ‘spending my last week at Bisitun completing my copy of the Inscriptions’.
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Seven: Royal Societies (#ulink_14509d5e-8d0e-5102-ac1a-61e788ed99e3)
On his arrival at Tehran, Rawlinson learned that Muhammed Shah had already left with his army for the planned expedition to the north-east. Because the British were alarmed that the Shah was being urged by the Russians to resume their attack on Herat, just over the border in Afghanistan, the British Envoy at Tehran, John McNeill, had prevented any of the British detachment from accompanying the Shah. Known as the ‘Gateway to Afghanistan’, Herat was also a gateway to India, and there was fear that its capture would enable the Russians to expand their influence throughout western Afghanistan and threaten British interests in neighbouring India.
In the eighteenth century, the Afghan Empire extended into parts of modern-day Iran, Pakistan and India – including Kashmir, Punjab, Baluchistan and Sind. Ruled by the Sadozai dynasty, this powerful empire controlled trade routes between Persia, India, Turkestan and central Asia, but by the early nineteenth century the empire had shrunk and fragmented through civil war into several independent regions. When Muhammed Shah was planning to capture Herat, that city was still under the Sadozai ruler Shah Kamran, while Muhammedzai rulers had seized control elsewhere, with Dost Mohammed Khan at Kabul and three half-brothers (the ‘Dil’ brothers) at Kandahar. At the same time that Rawlinson was ordered to the royal camp by the Shah of Persia, Lord Auckland, the Governor-General of India, had sent a mission to Kabul under Captain Alexander Burnes in an attempt to persuade Dost Mohammed to act in the British interest. A few years older than Rawlinson, Burnes was similar in many ways, having entered the East India Company army as a cadet at Bombay at the age of sixteen, with an enthusiasm and mastery of Hindustani, Persian and Arabic that enabled his career to progress rapidly. With the British involved with both Persia and Afghanistan, a complex situation was developing.
As Russian influence in Persian affairs was suspected, McNeill found it useful to allow Rawlinson to catch up with the Shah, as originally directed, and so he rode night and day on virtually unserviceable post-horses. After a week, on 8 October 1837, Rawlinson stumbled across the first evidence of a Russian connection with the Shah of Persia and with Dost Mohammed at Kabul: ‘Our whole party were pretty well knocked up; and in the dark, between sleeping and waking, we managed to lose the road. As morning dawned, we found ourselves wandering about on the broken plain … and shortly afterwards we perceived that we were close to another party of horsemen … I was not anxious to accost these strangers, but on cantering past them, I saw, to my astonishment, men in Cossack dresses … I thought it my duty, therefore, to try and unravel the mystery. Following the party, I tracked them for some distance along the high road, and then found that they had turned off to a gorge in the hills. There at length I came upon the group seated at breakfast by the side of a clear, sparkling rivulet … I addressed him [the officer] in French – the general language of communication between Europeans in the East – but he shook his head … All I could find out was, that he was a bona fide Russian officer, carrying presents from the Emperor [Tsar Nicholas I] to Mohammed Shah.’
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That evening Rawlinson met up with the Shah in his new camp close to the Afghan border. Rawlinson was completely exonerated for the dispute with Manuchar Khan, and the Shah appointed him to the post of Custodian of the Arsenal at Tehran, with responsibility for training new recruits. On mentioning that the Russian officer was bringing him presents, the Shah exclaimed: ‘Bringing presents to me! Why, I have nothing to do with him; he is sent direct from the Emperor to Dost Muhammed of Cabul, and I am merely asked to help him on his journey.’
(#litres_trial_promo) Two days later, the Russians turned up at the camp, and the officer Rawlinson had met on the road was introduced as Captain Vitkievitch, who now managed to converse in fluent French. In order to warn McNeill of the ominous mission of the Russians to Kabul, which would prove an even greater threat to India than the capture of Herat, Rawlinson returned to Tehran a few days later in what became a famous epic ride of 750 miles accomplished in 150 consecutive hours. His discoveries would precipitate the first Anglo-Afghan War.
At the end of the year Vitkievitch reached Kabul only to find that Burnes had for the last few weeks been in talks with Dost Mohammed. Three years earlier the Sikh army of the Maharajah Ranjit Singh had captured the city of Peshawar, incorporating it into his Punjab Empire. He now threatened to march up the Khyber Pass and take Kabul, so Dost Mohammed wanted the support of the British to regain Peshawar and also to prevent his half-brothers at Kandahar entering into an alliance with the Shah of Persia, who had begun to besiege Herat in November and was promising them that city in return for their support. Because Vitkievitch was also offering Dost Mohammed financial aid to regain Peshawar, Burnes advised the British government that they should do everything possible to assist Dost Mohammed in Afghanistan in order to keep the Russians at bay, while McNeill in Tehran largely supported these views, believing that a united Afghanistan would be better security against Persia and Russia.
Newly promoted to the rank of Major, Rawlinson was now involved with duties at the Arsenal at Tehran, but the task was not running smoothly. When recalled from Kermanshah by the Shah, Rawlinson had sent a copy of the order to his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin Shee, who had replaced Lindesay-Bethune the year before. On Rawlinson’s return to Tehran from the royal camp in late October, he found a letter from Shee asking for an explanation of his activities in Kermanshah over the last few months. In the ensuing exchange of correspondence, Shee accused Rawlinson of wrong-doing and disobedience, and objected especially to his appointment at the Arsenal. Rawlinson was furious, and on 10 January 1838 Shee informed him that ‘the whole of this correspondence will form the subject of my next Report to India’.
(#litres_trial_promo) It must have been very satisfying to receive notification from Shee on 16 February that: ‘I have the honor to send you a Royal Firman transmitted to me by the Military Secretary of Her Britannic Majesty’s Embassy at the Court of Persia – appointing you to the superintendence of the Arsenal and to drill recruits in Tahran.’
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Rawlinson’s duties were nevertheless not onerous, leaving him much time for studying. His first task was to compose a formal account of his Zohab to Susa expedition, which was published by the Royal Geographical Society at London in their journal for 1839. He also began to look at cuneiform again. Although he had copies of far more inscriptions than any other researcher, he had no access to the most recent research: ‘I was still under the impression that Cuneiform discovery in Europe was in the same imperfect state in which it had been left at the period of Saint Martin’s decease [in 1832].’
(#litres_trial_promo) Without full knowledge of what other scholars had subsequently done, Rawlinson was working in a vacuum, but he did succeed in translating several paragraphs of the Bisitun inscription. His method of working was to transcribe the Old Persian signs into Roman characters, and then translate this version into English.
On 1 January 1838, at the age of twenty-seven, Rawlinson sent the translation of the first two paragraphs of Bisitun to the Royal Asiatic Society in London, with an accompanying letter in which he explained: ‘I avail myself of the kindness of my friend Mr McNeill [the Envoy] in giving me a note of introduction to you to open a correspondence on the subject of some very interesting researches in which I am now engaged in this country and the results of which I am anxious to communicate to the world thro the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. On my arrival in Persia about four years ago, I applied myself with diligence to the study of the history, geography, literature and antiquities of the country. The latter field of research as being the least cultivated I found possessed of the most interest, and at an early stage of my enquiry, I could not of course but recognise the great importance of the Arrow headed inscriptions, the most ancient historical records that we possess in Persia … If you consider the subject of sufficient interest to be laid before the Society in its present incomplete state, I shall have much pleasure, when I receive your answer, in forwarding a statement of my researches as far as at the time they may extend. I anticipate the most extraordinary results, as far as the elucidation of ancient history is concerned from the interpretation of these inscriptions.’
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Rawlinson also explained in his letter that he had seen the results of Grotefend and Saint-Martin, but that much of the work of these two scholars was flawed, and that out of forty Old Persian cuneiform signs, he had discovered the meaning of around thirty and was also analysing the language, using clues from Zend and Sanskrit. He went on to describe how the inscription at Bisitun related the eastern victories of Darius and said that he was working on its most simple script. For now, he sent the society a transcription and translation of the opening two paragraphs (the titles and genealogy of Darius the Great), with a promise to send much more if they were interested.
The long letter was received in London in March. While other scholars in Europe were unknown to Rawlinson, he himself was unknown in England. The reply to him in early April by Major-General John Briggs, Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, demonstrated the genuine interest and enthusiasm of the society and a willingness to encourage and guide this young scholar ‘removed from the information which European libraries and scholars might afford you if on the spot’.
(#litres_trial_promo) Briggs first of all emphasized ‘that the Society is extremely happy to learn from you that there is a prospect of obtaining the contents of the cuneiform tablets … and it will thankfully receive and publish anything new which you may have the goodness to send on the subject’.
(#litres_trial_promo) Briggs went on to say that he had written to Dr Julius Mohl of Paris, an Oriental scholar who had been acquainted with Saint-Martin, entreating him to contact Eugène Burnouf, ‘one of the most profound Oriental scholars in Europe, and I believe the last who has occupied himself in translating the cuneiform character. He has succeeded in making out (according to his own alphabet, and from his thorough acquaintance with the Sanscrit and Zend languages) two inscriptions, one procured at Murghab, near Hamadan [Elwand], and the other at Van … His alphabet differs from that of Professor Grotefend and M. St. Martin, and, as you have both these, I believe, I now send that of Burnouf, showing the differences between it and those of his predecessors in the same study.’
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There was a genuine sense of excitement as word about Rawlinson’s achievements spread through the academic community, and a few days later his translation was exhibited to the Société Asiatique in Paris. His work was perceived to be so pioneering that, on 21 April, the Royal Asiatic Society informed him that he had been elected an honorary Corresponding Member, and the Société Asiatique did the same soon after. Mohl and Burnouf also sent copies of additional relevant publications to London for the Royal Asiatic Society to forward to Rawlinson.
At a meeting in London in May, the Royal Asiatic Society recorded: ‘Among other subjects of congratulation the Council cannot refrain from noticing the discovery made by our countryman, Major RAWLINSON, (at present in the army of the King of Persia) of vast tablets existing in various parts of that country, covered with cuneiform inscriptions, some of which contain a thousand lines each. The Society is aware of the efforts which have been made by some of the most learned Orientalists in Europe to decipher these inscriptions – efforts in which they have only partially succeeded hitherto, but which, through the energy of Major Rawlinson, and the aid of which he will be able to avail himself in the published Transactions of Messrs. Grotefend, St. Martin, Klaproth, Müller, Rask, Bellino, and Eugene Burnouf, may, it is hoped, be crowned with success.’
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Their report continued with the significance of Rawlinson’s discoveries: ‘A remarkable feature in the translation of a portion of one of these inscriptions, sent to the Society by Major Rawlinson, is the fact that the genealogy of a race of kings found on a tablet (which records, as he informs us, the conquests of Darius Hystaspes), corresponds very closely with the list of the same line of monarchs given in the seventh chapter of the second book of Herodotus. It is not, therefore, too much to hope that at no distant period, the mysteries of these inscriptions may be developed, and it seems probable these interesting monuments may throw additional light on the ancient history of Persia, beyond what has been transmitted to us by Greek authors.’
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Scholars were especially willing to extend every assistance to Rawlinson, because of the prospect of verifying Herodotus and increasing their knowledge of ancient Persia. They had no idea that the decipherment of cuneiform would also lead to momentous revelations about virtually unknown civilizations in Assyria and Babylonia. The society announced that Rawlinson had been urged ‘to devote himself, in the first place, to obtain copies of all the cuneiform inscriptions which are procurable in Persia, and to send one set for deposit in this Society’.
(#litres_trial_promo) A long relationship with the society developed, with Rawlinson frequently communicating his latest results by letter.
That summer, on 28 June 1838, the coronation of Queen Victoria took place in London, while in Tehran, Rawlinson received Burnouf’s report on the Elwand inscriptions, Mémoire sur deux Inscriptions Cuneiformes trouvés près d’Hamadan, that had been published two years earlier. He was disappointed to discover that he was not the first to copy and study this inscription and that Burnouf had pre-empted his own work. In the report, Burnouf discussed the work of other scholars on Old Persian cuneiform and reproduced the alphabet that Saint-Martin had worked out, commenting: ‘M. Saint-Martin assured me more than once that he believed his system of decipherment beyond criticism, at least in its general results. According to him, what still needed to be made clear were both the language in which these inscriptions was written … and the two other systems of writing to which he had given the names Median and Assyrian.’
(#litres_trial_promo) Nevertheless, Burnouf suggested a new alphabet of his own, thirty letters in all with three uncertain ones.
Rawlinson’s own work did not completely coincide with Burnouf’s, and he disputed several points: ‘The memoir of M. Burnouf on the Inscriptions of Hamadán [Elwand] … showed me that I had been anticipated in the announcement of many of the improvements that I had made on the system of M. Saint Martin, but I still found several essential points of difference between the Paris alphabet and that which I had formed from the writing at Behistun, and my observations on a few of these points of difference I at once submitted to M. Burnouf.’
(#litres_trial_promo) On 30 July Rawlinson wrote again to the Royal Asiatic Society, enclosing a long letter to Burnouf in Paris, which gave his own Old Persian alphabet and extensive copies of the cuneiform inscription at Bisitun. He explained to the Royal Asiatic Society that he was waiting to receive Burnouf’s report on the Yasna ‘before I forward you my copy and attempted translation of the great Bisitoon inscription. I have still thought it advisable to lose no time in putting myself in communication with that gentleman with a view to defining the exact points of coincidence and variance between our respective alphabets of the Cuneiform character. I have therefore written him a letter upon the subject which I forward to your address, and as it is possible that discussions may hereafter arise regarding the priority of claim to the determination of certain characters, perhaps you will kindly allow the letter to be copied and preserved among the records of your society.’
(#litres_trial_promo) Rawlinson explained that once he had received the Yasna and tested various points, ‘I trust to be able to bring my remarks on the Bisitoon Inscription to a state that will enable me to send off a considerable portion of the copy and translation by the next courier’.
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In fact, Burnouf’s Commentaire sur le Yaçna arrived that same day, and later Rawlinson wrote that ‘I there, for the first time, found the language of the Zend Avesta critically analyzed, and its orthographic and grammatical structure clearly and scientifically developed’.
(#litres_trial_promo) While he concentrated on Avestan (what he called Zend), Rawlinson learned much more about the language of Old Persian, appreciating that Avestan would give clues about vocabulary and grammatical structure. He began to progress beyond Burnouf’s achievements and seriously confronted Old Persian as a language, not just as a cuneiform script.
A few months earlier McNeill had gone to the Shah’s camp outside Herat in Afghanistan in an effort to persuade him to lift the siege and, Rawlinson noted, ‘left the confidential direction of the Legative affairs in my hands’.
(#litres_trial_promo) Having failed in his mission, McNeill returned to Tehran in June and subsequently led the British detachment to Tabriz near the Turkish frontier, with a view to quitting Persia. At the same time Lord Auckland sent a force from India, which occupied the strategically important island of Karak in the Persian Gulf and was threatening to invade the Persian mainland. The siege at Herat dragged on, with the Persian army making little progress, but when news of the British threat reached Herat in mid-August, the Shah was so alarmed that he abandoned the ten-month siege in early September. No good reason remained for the British to intervene in Afghanistan, especially as any real threat from Russia had now evaporated under British pressure. The Russians recalled their agent Vitkievitch, officially reprimanding him, and Rawlinson recorded that ‘not having accomplished all that had been expected of him, [he] was disavowed on his return to St Petersburg, and blew his brains out’.
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Although the problem had been resolved, Lord Auckland was intent on interfering in Afghanistan. Earlier in the year he had ignored the advice of Burnes to support Dost Mohammed at Kabul, but instead followed the advice of William Macnaghten, who was Chief Secretary of the Calcutta government. Support was guaranteed for the exiled Sadozai ruler of Afghanistan, Shah Shuja, and a treaty was signed between Shah Shuja, the Sikh leader Ranjit Singh and the British, with Shah Shuja agreeing to cede all territories that were once held by Afghanistan but were now occupied by the Sikhs, including Peshawar. At the summer capital of Simla in northern India, in the foothills of the Himalayas, Lord Auckland issued on 1 October 1838 what was in effect a declaration of war on the states of Kabul and Kandahar. It became known as the Simla Manifesto and was an attempt to justify an invasion of Afghanistan.
While based at Tabriz, Rawlinson received permission to undertake an expedition to explore north-west Persia that he had planned, but first of all he sent a letter to the Royal Asiatic Society apologizing for not sending the Bisitun inscription, but the troubled state of Persia made it too difficult. On 16 October he left the camp, and his journey over the next few weeks took him south and south-east of Tabriz, constantly compiling notes on the antiquities, villages, tribes and countryside. This time he was on his own, without the backing of an army of a few thousand men – a hazardous undertaking in which he relied on local guides. After two days he stopped at a village near Lake Urmia, where ‘Melik Kásim Mírzá, a son of the late Sháh of Persia … has built himself a palace in the European style near the village … To great intelligence and enterprise he unites a singular taste for the habits of European life, and the cultivation of many useful arts which belong to European civilization.’
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The following day was spent with the prince, ‘giving him such information and assistance as I was able in his various objects of pursuit. His acquaintance with European languages is extensive. Of French he is a perfect master; and in English and Russian he converses with much fluency. His habits of domestic life are also entirely European: he wears European clothes, breakfasts and dines in the European style; and, as far as regards himself, has adopted our manners, to the minutest point of observance; and this singular transition – a change which a person accustomed to the contrasts of European and Oriental life can alone appreciate – has arisen entirely from his own unbiased choice, and without his having had either means or inducement to effect it beyond his occasional intercourse with European society at Tabríz.’
(#litres_trial_promo) Rawlinson confessed that the village ‘presents a phenomenon in social life, which I should little have expected to meet with in Persia; and when I reflect that moral development can alone proceed from an improvement in the social condition, I fervently hope that the prince may have many imitators, and that a brighter day may thus be opening upon Persia.’
