REV. ANDREW CRAIG ROBINSON, M.A., ON ORIENTAL, ETC. 155 



Dr. Driver, on the other hand, had written in the latest edition 

 (1S97) of his Introductioii to the Literature of the Old 

 Tedaiiient : — 



" The attempt to refute the conclusions of criticism by means of 

 arehteology has signally failed." Preface, p. xviii. 



In the following essay the bearing of recent oriental 

 discoveries on certain specially controverted points will be 

 more particularly discussed. 



The Cuneifokm System of Whiting. 



The cuneiform system of writing, discovered and interpreted 

 in recent times, goes back, as is well known, to a period of 

 remote antiquity ; to a period, in fact, more than 4,000 years 

 before the Christian era. It was employed by the Babylonians, 

 Assyrians, Persians, and other nations of Western Asia ; and 

 there is good reason to believe that it was used for many 

 centuries in Canaan. Throughout these countries it seems to 

 have formed a common medium of intercourse. 



But after having thus endured for many thousand years as a 

 common medium for the intercourse of men — a thing most 

 passing strange occurred. Suddenly — following on the conquest 

 of the Persian empire by Alexander in 33 o B.C. — the knowledge 

 of the cuneiform characters, of which this system of writing 

 was composed, seems in the most mysterious fashion — without 

 warning — neglected — unnoticed — to have simply passed away 

 — fading completely from the minds of men — as utterly 

 forgotten as if it never had been known. 



In a memoir communicated to the Eoyal Asiatic Society in 

 1846 by Major Eawlinson — as he was then — the famous 

 decipherer of the great Behistun Inscription of Darius, 

 Eawlinson remarks that the Persian cuneiform character was 

 no doubt currently understood at the period of the Greek 

 invasion, but there is no monument that can be assigned to a 

 later date than Artaxerxes Ochus. " It may be inferred, there- 

 fore " — he went on to say — " that the Persian cuneiform writing 

 expired with the rule of the Achtemenian kings, and that the 

 knowledge even of the character was altogether lost before the 

 restoration of Magism by Ardisher the son of Babek." 

 Jourdcd of the Rayed Asiatic Society (1846), vol x, part 1, 

 p. 51. 



[NTo doubt the spread throughout Western Asia of Greek ideas 

 following on the conquests of Alexander may be said to have 

 been the immediate cause of this strange mysterious, fading 



