DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0031
Cn.\r. I.] The Verification of A ncient History.
11
It
The second test is furnished by inscriptions. It is how-
ever at once evident that ancient inscriptions can never
furnish us with so objective a test for history as geo-
graphical facts. There has perhaps been some misunder-
standing on this point, and too pronounced a tendency in
certain quarters to regard inscriptions as infallible, which
they clearly are not. All that we can prove from the
recovery of an inscription is, firstly, that a certain version
of fact was current in a particular time and place, and
secondly that this version was proclaimed by the public
setting up of a document recording it. The value of the
testimony of inscriptions must be judged by the same
canons as that of any other testimony, and it can in some
cases only help us to recover ideal, not objective history.
But for instance, if the inscription contains a law or decree
of any kind, it is an objective fact that the law or decree
was passed and recorded by authority.
As regards the earlier part of ancient history, the annals
of the Egyptians and Assyrians, it is well known that in
our days inscriptions are the main source of knowledge,
and the writings of authors like Berosus, Diodorus, and
even Herodotus are only used, with the greatest caution,
to fill gaps, or to compare with the contemporary docu-
ments, the mass of which is yearly growing upon us. As
an instance of the abundance of this ancient material, there
are in the British Museum thousands of un-read cuneiform
tablets, so many in fact that it has been stated that they
cannot be read and arranged in less than a century from
now ; yet every year increases the stock.
The importance of the cuneiform documents has come
home to classical scholars in connection with the question
of the credibility of Herodotus. Not many years ago
11
It
The second test is furnished by inscriptions. It is how-
ever at once evident that ancient inscriptions can never
furnish us with so objective a test for history as geo-
graphical facts. There has perhaps been some misunder-
standing on this point, and too pronounced a tendency in
certain quarters to regard inscriptions as infallible, which
they clearly are not. All that we can prove from the
recovery of an inscription is, firstly, that a certain version
of fact was current in a particular time and place, and
secondly that this version was proclaimed by the public
setting up of a document recording it. The value of the
testimony of inscriptions must be judged by the same
canons as that of any other testimony, and it can in some
cases only help us to recover ideal, not objective history.
But for instance, if the inscription contains a law or decree
of any kind, it is an objective fact that the law or decree
was passed and recorded by authority.
As regards the earlier part of ancient history, the annals
of the Egyptians and Assyrians, it is well known that in
our days inscriptions are the main source of knowledge,
and the writings of authors like Berosus, Diodorus, and
even Herodotus are only used, with the greatest caution,
to fill gaps, or to compare with the contemporary docu-
ments, the mass of which is yearly growing upon us. As
an instance of the abundance of this ancient material, there
are in the British Museum thousands of un-read cuneiform
tablets, so many in fact that it has been stated that they
cannot be read and arranged in less than a century from
now ; yet every year increases the stock.
The importance of the cuneiform documents has come
home to classical scholars in connection with the question
of the credibility of Herodotus. Not many years ago