Henry Creswicke Rawlinson

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Sir Henry Rawlinson
Maj. Gen. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson

Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet (born April 11, 1810 in Chadlington in Oxfordshire , † March 5, 1895 in London ) was a British archaeologist, Assyriologist and diplomat.

Rawlinson was instrumental in deciphering the cuneiform script . Between 1837 and 1844 he copied the Persian and Elamite parts of the Behistun inscription and deciphered the ancient Persian script.

biography

Rawlinson was the son of the horse breeder Abram Tyzack Rawlinson and his wife Elizabeth Eudocia, a daughter of Henry Creswicke. The historian George Rawlinson was his brother.

He received his education at Ealing in Middlesex . In 1826 he entered the military service of the British East India Company and in 1827 went to India as a cadet for the company. There he learned fluent Persian and was sent to Persia six years later to train the Shah's troops . There he saw the rock inscriptions in cuneiform by Bisutun , which he copied at the risk of his life within two years. Conflicts between the British and Persian governments led to his departure from Persia. In 1840 Rawlinson received a post in Kandahar and distinguished himself through bravery in the Anglo-Afghan war . At his own request he got a new job in Baghdad , where he had time to pursue his cuneiform studies.

In 1833 he was a major in the Persian military service. In 1840 he was appointed political agent in Kandahar in Afghanistan , in 1843 as agent in Arabia , in 1844 as British consul in Baghdad and in this capacity in 1851 made consul general and lieutenant colonel. In 1844 he was accepted as a companion in the Order of the Bath .

The Behistun inscription

Rawlinson used this position for archaeological research and initially earned great merit by copying the multilingual Behistun inscription high up on an isolated rock in Persia, which was associated with danger to life. Presumably without knowing the progress made in cuneiform deciphering in Germany, he determined the sound value of the old Persian cuneiform characters just like Christian Lassen in Bonn, except for one character . The historical result of his research was no less important, since the inscription from Bisutun revealed itself as a detailed report by King Darius I of his first undertakings and campaigns.

Rawlinson found an even larger field for his work in the rubble fields of Nineveh and Babylon , where he discovered an extraordinarily large number of Assyrian-Babylonian cuneiform scripts and deciphered them in collaboration with other English archaeologists. In 1846 he published his translation of the complete Bisutun inscription.

Rawlinson returned to England in 1849 and published his memoirs and the Behistun inscription there in 1851. On January 24, 1853, he was accepted as a foreign member of the Prussian order Pour le Mérite for sciences and arts . He bequeathed his oriental antiques to the British Museum and went on an expedition to ancient Mesopotamia with Austen Henry Layard . In 1855 he resigned from the East India Company and spent most of his remaining forty years in London.

In 1856 he was elected to the council of the East India Company, which position he retained during the reorganization of the Indian administration in 1858, now in the name of the crown. On February 5, 1856, he was raised to the personal nobility as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and from then on carried the suffix "Sir".

From February to October 1858 he was an MP in the British House of Commons for the constituency of Reigate .

In 1859 he was given the post of British ambassador at the court of Tehran , but resigned it again in 1860.

From July 1865 to November 1868 he was an MP in the British House of Commons for the constituency of Frome and then rejoined the Indian Council. Since 1853 he was a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1872 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1876 he was accepted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

On July 23, 1889 he was raised to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. On February 7, 1891 he was given the hereditary title of Baronet , of North Walsham in the County of Norfolk .

family

Rawlinson married Louisa Caroline Harcourt Seymour († 1889) in 1862. With this he had two sons:

Publications

He has erected a permanent monument for himself through the great work that he completed in four folio volumes on behalf of the British Museum and with the help of Norris and G. Smith:

  • "The cuneiform inscriptions of Western Asia" (1861-70).

Other writings are:

  • "The Persian cuneiform Inscriptions at Behistun" (1846);
  • "History of Assyria, as collected from the inscriptions discovered in the ruins of Niniveh" (1852);
  • "Memorandum on the publication of the cuneiform inscriptions" (1855);
  • "A selection from the miscellaneons inscriptions of Assyria" (1870) and
  • "England and Russia in the East" (1875).
  • George Rawlinson: Memoir of Henry Creswicke Rawlinson , Longmans Green, New York 1898.

Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Orden Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts: The members of the order. Volume 1: 1842-1881. Mann, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-7861-6189-5 , p. 174.
  2. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 279.
  3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 197.
  4. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 213.
predecessor title successor
New title created Baronet, of North Walsham
1891-1895 		Henry Rawlinson

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personal data
SURNAME Rawlinson, Henry Creswicke
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Assyriologist and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Chadlington , Oxfordshire
DATE OF DEATH March 5, 1895
Place of death London