Oppert, J., Babylone et Chaldée. Paris, 1874; L’immortalité de l’âme chez les Chaldéens. Paris, 1875; The Real Chronology of the Babylonian Dynasties. London, 1888 (in collab. with J. Menant); Documents juridiques de l’Assyrie et de la Chaldée. Paris, 1877; Histoire des empires de Chaldée et d’Assyrie. Versailles, 1865 (in collab. with J. Menant); Fastes de Sargon. Paris, 1863; Expédition scientifique en Mésopotamie. Paris, 1859-1863, 2 vols.; Fragments mythologiques. Paris, 1882; Fragments de cosmogonie chaldéenne. Paris, 1879; La fixation de la Chronologie des derniers rois de Babylone. Paris, 1893; La condition des esclaves à Babylone. Paris, 1888; Les inscriptions assyriennes des Sargonides et les fastes de Ninive. Paris, 1863.
Jules Oppert was born at Hamburg, 9th July, 1825. Professor Oppert is a German by birth but a Parisian by adoption. His whole oriental studies have been not alone made in Paris, but many of them under the direct auspices of the French Government, so that Frenchmen are perhaps justified in claiming him almost as a fellow-countryman. Professor Oppert has that comprehensive scholarship which is characteristic rather of the German than the Frenchman. He is a philologist and linguist of the broadest type. Unfortunately for the general public the German cast of his mind shows itself still further in his apparent contempt for the literary graces. He is a scholar who works for scholars, and it is but seldom that he has written anything which comes well within the grasp of the general public. His is, therefore, a name which one meets everywhere in pursuing the literature of Assyriology, but the results of whose investigations must usually come to the general reader, as it were, through an interpreter.
Peiser, F. E., Keilinschriftliche Aktenstücke. Berlin, 1890; Studien zur Oriental. Alterthumskunde. Berlin, 1897. (In Vorderasiat, Ges. Mitt. 1897, 4 vols.); Babylon, Verträge. Berlin, 1890; A Sketch of Babylonian Society (in Smithsonian Institute. Annual Report, 1898. Washington, 1899).—Perrot, G., A History of Art in Assyria. London, 1884.—Peters, J. P., Nippur, or Explorations and Adventures, etc. New York and London, 1897, 2 vols.; Some Recent Results of the University of Pennsylvania, Excavations at Nippur (in Amer. Jour. of Archeol., vol. 10, pp. 13, 352, 439, Princeton, 1895); The Seat of the Earliest Civilisation in Babylon and the Date of its Beginnings (in Amer. Orient. Soc. Jour., New Haven, 1896).
Dr. John Punnett Peters was formerly professor of Hebrew in the University of Pennsylvania; at present rector of St. Michael’s Protestant Episcopal Church, New York City. For more than a generation after the discoveries of Botta and Layard and their successors in Mesopotamia had been furthered by companies of English and French and German explorers, America had taken no part in the work, but in 1880, the University of Pennsylvania determined to make amends for this neglect by sending out a fully equipped exploring party. The leader of this movement, and the man who personally conducted the explorations of the first two years in the field, was Professor J. P. Peters. Through his energetic efforts the numberless difficulties that such an enterprise involves were overcome, and some most important discoveries were made. The chief of these was the location of the Babylonian city of Nippur, the site of that ancient temple of Bel, which was, as Dr. Peters points out, to many generations of old Babylonians and Assyrians what the temple of Jerusalem has been to the peoples of Christendom. His discoveries at Nippur have added greatly to the work that has been carried on at Babylon and Nineveh, and “helped to carry our knowledge of civilised man two thousand years farther back than was known less than half a century ago.” At Nippur he discovered what is probably the oldest known temple in the world. Both his expeditions met with very bitter and determined opposition from government officials and wandering inhabitants in the vicinity of Nippur, and it is mainly due to his fearless determination that successful excavations were finally made.
Pinches, T. G., Religious Ideas of the Babylonians. London, 1893; Notes. London, 1892; Sumerian or Cryptography (in Royal Asiatic Soc. Jour.; 1900, p. 75, 1900); The Babylonian and Assyrian Cylinder-Seals of the British Museum (in Jour. Brit. Archeol. Assoc.; vol. 41, p. 396, London, 1885). The Bronze Gates of Balawat in Assyria (in Jour. Brit. Archeol. Assoc.; vol. 35, p. 233, London, 1879); The Temples of Ancient Babylonia (in Proc. Soc. Bibl. Archeol., vol. 22, p. 358, London, 1900).—Place, V., Ninive et l’Assyrie. Paris, 1867-1890.—Pognon, H., Inscription de Meron-Nerar, roi d’Assyrie. Paris, 1884. Les inscriptions babyloniennes du Wadi Brissa. Paris, 1887.—Prévost-Paradol, L. A., Essai sur l’histoire universelle. Paris, 1890, 2 vols.
Radau, H., Early Babylonian History. New York, 1900.—Ragozin, Z. A., The Story of Chaldea (Stories of the Nations). London, 1888; Media, Babylon and Persia. London, 1889; Assyria. London, 1888.—Ranwolf, L., Journey into Syria, Armenia, Mesopotamia.—Rassam, H., Excavations and Discoveries in Assyria. London; Asshur and the Land of Nimrod. Cincinnati, 1897; Babylonian Cities. London, 1883.
Hormuzd Rassam was born of Chaldean Christian parents at Mosul, Turkey, in 1826. In 1845 he became acquainted with Austin H. Layard, who was then exploring Assyrian ruins, and becoming much interested in the work of Layard, he accompanied him to England in 1847, continuing his studies in that country. In 1864 he was sent by the British Government on a mission to Abyssinia to secure the release of several Europeans who were held prisoners by King Theodore, but he was himself imprisoned for two years by that king. Shortly after securing his release he visited the Babylonian-Assyrian region for the British Museum, and while on this expedition and others following, he made many important discoveries. Notable among these discoveries are the bronze gates of Balawat, from the time of Shalmaneser II (858-824 B.C.), and the Abu-Habba tablet, recording the restoration of the temple by Nabu-apal-iddin, a contemporary of Shalmaneser II. The name of Rassam is associated with that of Layard, and with the early history of Assyriology. Rassam was primarily an explorer; he assisted Layard in his earlier work at Nineveh, and himself carried on the investigations for the British Government after Layard had been called to other fields. Rassam has never become an Assyriologist in the technical acceptance of the term, contenting himself generally with securing the material on which the investigations of numerous scholars have been based. The greatest single feat which he accomplished was the discovery of the now famous library of Asshurbanapal. He has himself told the story of his discoveries in books that are not so widely known as they deserve to be.
Rawlinson, G., The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World. 2nd ed. London, 1871; A Manual of Ancient History. Oxford, 1869; Herodotus. London, 1858-75, 4 vols.; Papers in Jour. Royal Asiatic Soc.; vols. X, XI, XII. London, 1885; The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia. London, 1861-1891.
George Rawlinson (brother of Sir Henry Rawlinson) was born at Chadlington, Oxfordshire, England, in 1815. He was educated at Swansea and at Ealing School. He graduated from Trinity College, Oxford, with classical honours, in 1838. He was elected Fellow of Exeter College in 1840. In 1859, as Bampton Lecturer, he delivered his famous lecture on Historical Evidences of the Truth of the Scriptural Records. He was chosen Camden Professor of Ancient History in 1861, and in 1872 was made Canon of Canterbury. His historical writings cover nearly the entire history of the Ancient Orient. Some one has said of Canon Rawlinson that his scholarship is of a peculiarly German type, and the criticism would seem to be essentially just. Few other Englishmen of our generation have covered so wide a field of history, and covered it so thoroughly as has Professor Rawlinson. The whole field of southwestern Asia in antiquity he has made peculiarly his own, and in a series of widely circulated books he has imparted his knowledge to the world, some of them, as that on the Parthian Monarchy, dealing with nations that other historians had very much neglected. All of this work, as has been said, is based upon scholarly investigations that might justly be said to be profound. If in his estimate of certain portions of this history, in particular as regards the newer ideas of the chronology of the remoter periods, Professor Rawlinson has hardly kept pace with the leaders of the newest generation, this is certainly not more than one should expect in one whose memories carry him back to the very beginnings of the “time” controversy. The Canon died in 1902.