A manual of the ancient history of the East
François Lenormant
A manual of the ancient history of the East.pdf
The one great fact of the last fifty years in the scientific world has certainly been the revival of historical
studies, and especially that conquest which has been achieved of the ancient past of the East by modem criticism, which has been alile to throw light
into the darkest recesses of annals long buried in obscurity.
But a short half century ago, little was known of the ancient world beyond
the Greeks and Romans. Accustomed to look on these two great nations as the representatives of ancient civilisation, it was easy to ignore all that
had taken place beyond the regions of Greece and Italy.
It was almost agreed that one entered the domain of positive history, only in setting
foot on the soil of Europe. It was known, however, that in this immense tract of country, lying between the Nile and the Indus, there had once been
great centres of civilisation — monarchies embracing vast territories and innumerable tribes; capitals more extensive than our modern western
capitals; palaces as sumptuous as those of our own kings, on which, as some vague traditions said, their proud builders had inscribed the pompous
history of their deeds. It was also known that these ancient nations of Asia had left behind them mighty traces of their passage o'er the earth.
Heaps of ruins in the desert, and on the river banks, temples, pyramids, monuments of every kind, covered with inscriptions in strange and unknown
characters, and the tales of travellers in these countries — all bore witness to a really great development of social culture. But this greatness
was to be found only in ruins, in fragmentary stories of Grecian historians, and in some passages in the Bible. And as everything belonging to the
primitive eastern world assumes colossal proportions, it was but natural to infer tliat fiction occupied a large place in Biblical story, and in the
pages of Herodotus.
To-day everything is quite changed. In all its branches the science of antiquities has soared to a height previously unknown, and its discoveries have changed the page of history. From the great works of the learned men of the Renaissance, the civilisation of Greece and Rome was supposed to be known to its very base ; and yet on that very civilisation Archseology has been found to throw an unexpected light.
The study and correct understanding of the ornamented remains, the history of art, dates, so to speak, but from yesterday. Winckelman closes
the eighteenth, and Visconti inaugurates the present, century.
The innvimerable painted vases, and nioiuimcnts of every description which
have been and siill are furnished by the burial places of Etruria, of Greece, of C'yrcnc, ami of the Crimea, constitute an immense field of
research unknown lifty years atjo, and whicli has prodigiously extended the horizon of science.
But these advances in the domain of the
classical world are nothing when compared with the new worlds suddenly revealed to our eyes; with Egypt, openeil up to us first by the French, and
which has supplied remains to fdl the museums of Europe, and initiate us into the minutest details of the oldest civilisation of the world ; with
Assyria, whose monuments, discovered also by a frenchman, have been disinterred from the grave where they have lain for more than 2,000 years, and
open to our view an art and culture of which but the faintest indication is to be found in historical literature.
Nor is this all.
Phoenician art, intermediate between that of Egypt and Assyria, has been revealed to us, and invaluable treasures have been recovered from the
catacombs. Aramaaan Syria has given us its ancient inscriptions and memorials. Bold explorers, too, have made us acquainted with the traces of all the
various nations so closely packed in the narrow territory of Asia Minor. Cyprus with its strange writing and the sculptures of its temples ; Lycia
with its peculiar language, its inscriptions, coins, sepulchral grottoes; Phrygia with its great rock, sculptured bas-reliefs, and the tombs of the
kings of the family of Midas ; Arabia contributes to science ancient monuments of times anterior to Islamism, texts engraven by pilgi-ims on the rocks
of Sinai, and the numerous inscriptions which abound in Yemen. Nor let Persia be forgotten with the remains of its kings, Achaemenian and Sassanian.
Nor India, where our knowledge has been entirely renewed by the study of the Vedas. But it is not only the length of the coui'se that has been
increased, the progress of science has been so great that its domain is now also widely extended. Everywhere, by new routes, enterprising and
successful pioneers have pushed their researches, and thrown light into the darkest recesses. Europe in our age takes definite possession of the
world. What is true of the events of tlie day, is also true in the region of learning ; science regains possession of the ancient world, and of ages
long forgotten.