Edward Hincks

Edward Hincks (August 19, 1792 - December 3, 1866), Irish Assyriologist and one of the decipherers of Mesopotamian cuneiform. Image File history File links Edward_Hincks. ... Image File history File links Edward_Hincks. ... August 19 is the 231st day of the year (232nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1792 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... December 3 is the 337th (in leap years the 338th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1866 (MDCCCLXVI) is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ... Assyriology is the historical and archaeological study of ancient Mesopotamia. ... This is an article about the ancient middle eastern region. ...

The eldest son of a distinguished Protestant minister, Edward Hincks was born in Cork on 19 August 1792. He was educated at home by his father and later at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating in 1811, when he was just nineteen. In 1825, after taking orders in the Church of Ireland, he was appointed rector of Killyleagh in County Down, an office he was to hold for the remaining forty-one years of his life. Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ... Statistics Province: Munster County Town: Cork Code: C (CK proposed) Area: 7,457 km² Population (2002) 447,829 Website: www. ... 1792 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin or more commonly Trinity College, Dublin was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I, and is the only constituent college of the University of Dublin, Irelands oldest university. ... Joyce Rollins is a lesbian. ... 1825 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion, operating seamlessly across the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. ... Killyleagh (Cill Uí Laoigh in Irish, meaning Church of the descendants of heroes) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. ... County Down, (An Dún in Irish) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, covering an area of 2,448 km² (945 square miles). ...

The undemanding nature of his clerical duties left him with more than enough time to pursue his interest in ancient languages. His first love was for the hieroglyphic writing of ancient Egypt. By 1823 the Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion had succeeded in deciphering this enigmatic script, but Hincks made a number of telling discoveries of his own which established him as a leading light in the field of ancient philology. Jean-Fran ois Champollion For the comet rendezvous spacecraft, see Champollion (spacecraft). ...

In the 1830s he turned his attention to Old Persian cuneiform, a form of writing that the emperors of Persia had used for monumental inscriptions in their own language. Working independently of the leading Orientalist of the day Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, Hincks deduced the essentially syllabic nature of this script and correctly deduced the values of the Persian vowels. The cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. ... Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (April 11, 1810 – March 5, 1895) was a British soldier, diplomat and orientalist. ...

Rev Hincks’ greatest achievement, however, was the decipherment of the ancient language and writing of Babylon and Assyria: Akkadian cuneiform. But his attention might never have been drawn to the relatively new field of Assyriology had it not been for a lucky find in 1842. Babylon is the Greek variant of Akkadian Babilu (bāb-ilû, meaning Gateway of the god, translating Sumerian Kadingirra), an ancient city in Mesopotamia (modern Al Hillah, Iraq). ... Relief from Assyrian capital of Dur Sharrukin, showing transport of Lebanese cedar (8th c. ...

In that year the archaeologist Paul Émile Botta uncovered the remains of the ancient city of Niniveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. Among the priceless treasures unearthed by Botta and his successors was the famous library of Assurbanipal, a royal archive containing tens of thousands of baked clay tablets. These tablets were inscribed in a strange illegible form of writing known as cuneiform. Three men were to play a decisive role in the decipherment of this script: Hincks, Rawlinson and a young German-born scholar called Jules Oppert. Paul-Émile Botta (December 6, 1802 in Torino, Italy - March 29, 1870 in Achères, France) was French Consul in Mosul (then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Iraq) since 1842. ... This article is about the ancient Middle Eastern city of Nineveh. ... This article concerns the ancient Mesopotamian kingdom. ... Assurbanipal in a relief from the north palace at Nineveh There were several Assyrian kings named Assur-bani-pal, also spelled Asurbanipal, Assurbanipal (most commonly), Ashurbanipal and Ashshurbanipal, but the best known was Assurbanipal IV.  Ashurbanipal, or Assurbanipal, (reigned 668 - 627 BCE), the son of Esarhaddon and Naqia-Zakutu... Julius Oppert Julius Oppert (July 9, 1825 - August 21, 1905), French-German Assyriologist, was born at Hamburg, of Jewish parents. ...

Hincks correctly deduced that cuneiform writing had been invented by one of the earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia (a people later identified by Oppert as the Sumerians), who then bequeathed it to later states such as Babylon, Assyria and Elam. Sumer (or Shumer, Sumeria, Shinar, native ki-en-gir) formed the southern part of Mesopotamia from the time of settlement by the Sumerians until the time of Babylonia. ...

By 1850 Hincks had come to a number of important conclusions regarding the nature of Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform. He believed that the script was essentially syllabic, comprising open syllables (eg "ab" or "ki") as well as more complex closed syllables (eg "mur"). He also discovered that cuneiform characters were "polyphonic," by which he meant that a single sign could have several different readings depending on the context in which it occurred. 1850 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ...

By now Hincks had recognized a large number of determinatives and had correctly established their readings. But not everyone was convinced by the claims being made by the Irishman and his distinguished colleagues. Some philologists even suggested that they were simply inventing multiple readings of the signs to suit their own translations.

In 1857 the versatile English Orientalist William Henry Fox Talbot suggested that an undeciphered cuneiform text be given to several different Assyriologists to translate. If, working independently of one another, they came up with reasonably similar translations, it would surely dispel the doubts surrounding their claims. 1857 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... William Henry Fox Talbot (February 11, 1800 - September 17, 1877) was one of the first photographers and made major contributions to the photographic process. ...

As it happened, Talbot and the "holy trinity of cuneiform" – Hincks, Rawlinson and Oppert – were in London in 1857. Edwin Norris, secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, gave each of them a copy of a recently discovered inscription from the reign of the Assyrian emperor Tiglath-Pileser I. A jury of experts was empanelled to examine the resulting translations and assess their accuracy. 1857 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Article 90a of the bylaws of the Royal Asiatic Society. ... Tiglath-Pileser I (the Hebraic form of Tukulti-apil-Esharra, my trust is in the son of Esharra) was King of Assyria (1115 BC - 1077 BC). ...

In all essential points the translations produced by the four scholars were found to be in close agreement with one another. There were of course some slight discrepancies. The inexperienced Talbot had made a number of mistakes, and Oppert’s translation contained a few doubtful passages due to his unfamiliarity with the English language. But Hincks’ and Rawlinson’s versions were virtually identical. The jury declared itself satisfied, and the decipherment of cuneiform was adjudged a fait accompli.

The Reverend Edward Hincks devoted the remaining years of his life to the study of cuneiform and made further significant contributions to its decipherment. He died at his rectory in Killyleagh on 3 December 1866 at the age of 74. He was survived by a wife and four daughters. 1866 (MDCCCLXVI) is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ...