Archibald Sayce

Archibald Henry Sayce ( born September 25, 1846 in Shirehampton near Bristol, † February 4, 1933 in Bath ) was an English orientalist and archaeologist. In 1891 he became the first professor of Assyriology at Oxford and remained in this position until 1919. He belongs to the lineage of great British antiquity watchers.

Life

Sayce was the son of Mary and Henry Samuel Sayce, a pastor. As a child he suffered from tuberculosis and was taught at home. He was a gifted child and studied the age of 10 Virgil and Xenophon; Hebrew he began to learn the age of 14. Sayce read as a high school student publications of cuneiform decipherers Georg Friedrich Grotefend, Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, Edward Hincks, William Henry Fox Talbot and Jules Oppert and even as a young student, he had acquired the tools to keilschrift known union subjects. In 1865 he began his studies at Queen 's College, Oxford, which he in 1869 with a BA completed. In the same year he became a Fellow of Queen's. A year later he became a tutor at the college. In 1870 he was ordained a priest of the Church of England. From 1891 to 1915, Sayce professor of Assyriology at Oxford. He established Assyriology as well as the Hittite in the UK.

His first work on the cuneiform writings he published in 1870 under the title An Accadian Seal in the Journal of Philology. Among his early works also include: Assyrian Grammar (1872 ) and Elementary Grammar with Reading Book of the Assyrian Languages ​​" (1875 ) and Lectures upon the Assyrian Language and syllabary (1877 ). Through lectures in 1870 founded the Society of Biblical Archaeology and weekly articles in The Times and New York Independent Sayce had already made as an authority in this field a name. The members of the Society included, among other Edwin Norris, Hormuzd Rassam, William Henry Fox Talbot and George Smith, who also dealt with cuneiform texts. For the University of Oxford, he was from 1874 for a decade representative in the Old Testament Revision Company.

In 1876 Sayce Deputy professor of philology and published the two-volume work Introduction to the science of language.

During this time he often took sabbatical and traveled extensively through Europe and Asia, the Far East, North Africa and North and South America.

The inscriptions of Van

Archibald Henry Sayce published in 1882 a sensational article in the "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society ," in which he comprehensively dealt with the Urartian cuneiform inscriptions of Van and deciphered. In this article he also introduced a new geographic and temporal provision of manna, which had previously been located in Van.

Following the publication Sayce among others Stanislas Guyard congratulated from Paris, DH Müller from Vienna and Kerope Patkanov from St. Petersburg and sent him suggestions for improvement and additions for grammar and vocabulary of the Urartian or Vannischen ( " Vannic "). These processed Sayce in a post, which was published in 1888.

William Wright had 1884 at Bogazköy discovered hieroglyphic inscriptions that were written in a previously unknown type and resembled of Hamath in Syria. Sayce and William Wright identified the ruins of Bogazköy with Hattušsa, the capital of the Hittite empire, which extended by Wright from the Aegean Sea to the banks of the Euphrates.

The Royal Asiatic Society in London as a collection point for inscriptions

After publication of the Royal Asiatic Society Sayces in London received news of all new font finds. Finally, a bilingual text ( uraratäisch and Syriac) in Kelišin (also Kelashin stele ) discovered (now Oschnavieh in the province of West Azerbaijan, southwest of Lake Urmia in Iran today ) and in Topzawa. The text confirmed the deciphering of Urartian language through by Sayce with minor changes, that key words are added. The inscription reports the victories of the ruler Išpuini after his accession to the throne 828 BC and mentioned titles and names of Assyrian rulers.

The expedition of the Imperial Archaeological Society of Moscow was a large number of inscriptions contribute to the list, published by Nikolsky and Vladimir S. Golenischeff. The largest collection of new texts was contributed by Waldemar Belck, the Rusa stele discovered in 1891 and 1898/99 with Ferdinand Friedrich Carl Lehmann-Haupt excavations in Toprakkale, the castle rock of Van undertook.

See also: History of research of Urartu

In Egypt

During his stay in Egypt in the archaeological period in European winter Sayce always hired a well-equipped boat on the Nile, in which he brought his library and guests could invite for a cup of tea.

A farmer's wife had found at Tell el- Amarna clay tablets with cuneiform texts that were bought in Cairo in 1887 by some detours Museum. Amarna was the capital of newly built by Akhenaten Akhetaten, start in the Flinders Petrie in the fall of 1892, the first scientific excavation on the site of Amarna for the Egypt Exploration Fund and should find more clay tablets. Sayce had to do nothing more urgent than in Boulaq Museum in Cairo ( Egyptian Museum today ) deposited to study " Amarna letters ". As it turned out, the Pharaonenhof had corresponded on these cuneiform clay tablets with its Middle-Eastern allies. Among them were two letters from a "kingdom Cheta ", the Hatti - land with Akkadian texts. Sayce published 1888/89 in the Society of Biblical Archeology of his studies, a report ..

Sayce knew the British archaeologist who worked in Egypt, such as Flinders Petrie, Somers Clarke, Joseph John Tylor and Frederick W. Green ( 1869-1949 ). The latter two had made ​​in 1895-97 El- Kab excavations. Elkab lies on the right bank of the Nile, about 15 km north of Edfu. Through a massive mud-brick city wall, which measures approximately 520 mx 590 m, it is visible in the landscape. 1901-02 Sayce took part in the excavations of Green and Somers Clarke. In the rock walls all around there is a large burial ground ( cemetery ) with over 300 rock tombs and mastabas ( for the rich ) from the time of Amenhotep III. , The powerful ruler of the 18th Dynasty. With the Egyptologist James Edward Quibell he uncovered in El- kab mastabas and rock-cut tombs.

Furthermore Sayce played a significant role in the excavations of Meroe, the ancient capital of Ethiopia. From 1909 to 1914 John Garstang ( 1876-1956 ) of the University of Liverpool, the city of Meroe large area free, this in 1912 finding what he called the Royal Baths. Meroe was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush. It is located in present-day Sudan, about 220 kilometers north of the modern city of Khartoum. About this excavation a book with an introduction and a chapter on the decipherment of the inscriptions by Sayce as well as a chapter on the inscriptions from Meroe of Francis Llewellyn Griffith (1862-1934) and photographs by Horst Schliephack was ..

Sayce was unmarried and died on February 4, 1933 in Bath.

Publications

His numerous publications deal with the various peoples of the ancient East: Hittites, Hebrews, Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians.

• "Assyrian Grammar for Comparative Purposes " (1872 )
• "Principles of Comparative Philology " (1874 )
• " Babylonian Literature " (1877 )
• "Introduction to the Science of Language" (1879 )
• " Monuments of the Hittites " (1881 )
• " Herodotus " (1883 )
• " Ancient Empires of the East" (1884 )
• "Introduction to Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther " (1885 )
• " Assyria " (1885 )
• " Hibbert Lectures on Babylonian Religion " (1887 )
• "The Hittites " (1889 )
• " Races of the Old Testament" (1891 )
• "Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments" (1894 )
• " Patriarchal Palestine " (1895 )
• "The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotus " (1895 )
• "Early History of the Hebrews " (1897 )
• "Israel and the surrounding Nations" (1898 )
• " Babylonians and Assyrians " (1900)
• "Egyptian and Babylonian religion" (1903 )
• "Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions " (1907 )
• Autobiography, " Reminiscences " (1923 )