dissuaded by earlier attempts to make illustrations a conspicuous
feature. On the contrary, newspaper illustration has grown to the
proportions of a special art, and all of the larger and better equipped
dailies have organized departments into which are gathered photographs
and engravings ready for reproduction as events demand. So the
correspondent and reporter have added to knighthood of the pen that of
the camera, and the scenic view has become an essential part of serious
correspondence and sprightly reporting.
An immense, imposing, and highly useful current of literature flows
through the magazines, which have, by their number, beauty, and
adaptation, come to be a distinguishing feature of the nineteenth
century. This class of literature is usually called “Periodical,” and
it embraces the magazines and reviews devoted to general literature and
science, the class magazines devoted to particular branches of science,
art, or industry, and the publications of schools and societies. Most
periodicals published in the English language are monthlies. The same
is true of those published on the continent of Europe, save that there
the old-fashioned quarterly style is still much affected.
Periodical literature found a beginning in France as early as 1665,
in what is still the organ of the French Academy. The first English
periodical was published in 1680, and was hardly more than a catalogue
of books. The growth of the periodical or magazine proved to be very
slow. Up to 1800, not more than eighty had found mentionable existence
as scientific and technical periodicals, and only three as strictly
literary periodicals. The advent of “The Edinburgh Review,” in 1802,
gave great impetus to periodical literature in Great Britain, and the
period from 1840 to 1850 was one of special development, but to be
surpassed by that of 1860 to 1870, when the shilling magazine came into
vogue. This class of literature also developed very rapidly in France
during the century, Paris having 1381 periodicals of all kinds by
1890. There was an equally rapid development in Germany, Austria, and
throughout the continent.
The English magazine found several imitators in the United States
during the latter part of the eighteenth century, most of which had
brief existences. Such was the fatality overhanging this class of
enterprise, that until 1810 but twenty-seven periodicals could be
counted in the United States. While the next forty years were marked
by several magazine successes, such as the “Knickerbocker,” “Graham’s
Magazine,” and “Putnam’s Monthly,” they were, nevertheless, strewn
with long lines of melancholy wreckage. Indeed, it was not until
the middle of the century that the demand for magazine literature
became sufficiently intense to make investment in it profitable and
permanent. Since then the development has been almost phenomenal,
keeping even pace with that of the newspaper. At the end of the century
the number of monthlies published in the United States approximates
2800; and there are over 300 fortnightlies, 56 bi-monthlies, and 192
quarterlies. These cover the vast domains of general literature,
religion, science, art, and industry, and in many respects vie with
the newspaper in popularity and influence. Many of them have developed
into magnificent properties, whose value would appear incomprehensible
to our grandfathers. They employ excellent talent when special topics
are treated, and rise to occasions of war or other excitement through
graphically written and highly illustrated articles. Indeed, one of
their most impressive features is the high degree to which they have
carried the art of illustration. Toward the close of the century,
periodical literature has been greatly expanded and popularized by
the introduction of the cheap magazine. The older and more dignified
periodicals had not thought of permanent and profitable existence
at a price less than twenty-five to fifty cents a copy; but those
of the younger and ten-cent class, by dint of what seems to be a
newly discovered enterprise, have found cheapness no barrier to
commercial success. Within a decade they have duplicated patrons of
magazine literature by the million, and proven quite as clearly as the
newspapers have done that we are a nation of readers.
THE RECORDS OF THE PAST
BY MORRIS JASTROW, JR., PH.D.,
_Professor of Semitic Languages, University of Pennsylvania_.
The present century has so many distinguishing features that it is
a hazardous undertaking to summarize its achievements. All branches
of science—Philology, History, Mathematics, Medicine, Theology,
and Philosophy—have felt the stimulating influence of a new spirit
that made its appearance after the French Revolution. New methods of
investigation have not only led to profound modification of views
in all departments of science, but have brought about considerable
additions to the sum of human knowledge. In the domain of natural
science, the discovery of new principles and of hitherto unknown forces
has widened the horizon of humanity and created new mental disciplines;
but while perhaps less conspicuous, because not so directly connected
with the actual concerns and needs of the present, the fertility
of historical research during this century is not less remarkable.
The larger area now embraced under the caption “history of mankind”
furnishes the best proof for the success that has signalized the labors
of scholars—philologists, historians, and explorers—devoted to the
study of the past. Ancient history no longer begins with the Greeks
or the Hebrews. Its _certain_ limits have been removed to as remote a
date as 3000 B. C., while the anthropologist, supplementing the work
of the historian, has furnished a picture in detail of the life led
by man in various quarters of the globe during that indefinite period
which preceded the rise of culture in the true sense of the word. This
extension of knowledge in the domain of human history is primarily
due to the spade of the explorer, though it required the patience
and ingenuity of the philologist and archæologist to interpret the
material furnished in abundance by the soil that happily preserved
the records of lost empires. Documents in stone, clay, and papyrus
have been brought forth from their long resting-places to testify to
the antiquity and splendor of human culture. By the side of written
records, monuments of early civilization have been dug up, palaces,
forts, and temples filled with works of art and skill, to confirm by
their testimony the story preserved by those who belonged to the age of
which they wrote.
[Illustration: THE “BLACK OBELISK” OF SHALMANESER II., KING OF ASSYRIA.
B. C. 860–824.
(British Museum.)]
RESEARCHES IN MESOPOTAMIA.—The archæological researches conducted
during this century have definitely established the fact that the
earliest civilizations flourished in the Valley of the Euphrates and
in the district of the Nile. Until the beginning of this century,
Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria were little more than names. The spirit
of skepticism which accompanies the keen desire for investigation
led scholars to question the tales found in classical writers of the
great achievements of the Babylonians and Egyptians. At the beginning
of this century scarcely a vestige remained of the cities of ancient
Mesopotamia. The site of Nineveh was unknown, and that of Babylon was
in dispute. A profound sensation was created when, in 1842, P. E.
Botta, the French Consul at Mosul, discovered the remains of a palace
beneath a mound at Khorsabad, some miles to the north of Mosul on
the east bank of the Tigris. Botta’s discovery marked the beginning
of an activity and exploration in Mesopotamia which continues to the
present day. At first the excavations were confined to the mounds in
the north, in which the palaces of the great Assyrian kings, Sargon,
Esarhaddon, Sennacharib and Asurbanibal (or Sardanapalus as he was
called by Greek writers) were unearthed, as well as the great sacred
edifices that formed one of the glories of ancient Assyria. The
buildings exhumed abound in long series of sculptured slabs, on which
are depicted incidents in the campaigns of the kings and in their
private life. Historical records on stone and clay furnished the needed
details in illustration of the scenes, and lastly, literary remains
in profusion were found, which revealed the intellectual life and
religious aspirations of the masses and of the secular and religious
leaders. To England and France belongs the glory of these early
explorations. Through Botta and Sir Austen Henry Layard, the ancient
cities of Nineveh, Calah, and Ashur, were rediscovered. But as the
field of activity extended to the mounds in the south, in the Valley
of the Euphrates, other countries, notably Germany and the United
States, joined in the work. The excavation of the remains of the city
of Babylon were first conducted by Sir Henry Rawlinson in 1854, and
much work was afterward done by Hormuzd Rassam; but the most notable
achievements of recent years are the excavations conducted by DeSarzec,
under the auspices of the French Government, at Telloh, from 1881 to
1895, and those of the University of Pennsylvania at Nippur, begun in
1888, and which are still going on.
Through these excavations the history of Babylonia has been carried
back to the fourth millenium B. C., and while there are still some
important gaps to be filled out, the course of events in Babylonia
and Assyria from this remote period down to the year 587 B. C., when
Cyrus the Mede established a new empire on the ruins of Babylonia and
Assyria, is tolerably clear. Hand in hand with the excavations has gone
the decipherment of the inscriptions found in such abundance beneath
the mounds. On clay, stone, and metals, rulers inscribed records of
their reigns; and added to pictorial illustrations accounts of their
achievements in war as well as in the internal improvements of their
empires. Clay, so readily furnished by the soil, became the ordinary
writing material both in Babylonia and in Assyria, and in the course
of time an extensive library, embracing hymns and prayers, omens and
portents, epics, myths, legends, and creation stories, arose. In every
important centre there gathered around the temples bodies of priests
devoted to the preservation and the extension of this literature.
Assyrian culture being but an offshoot of the civilization in the
south, Assyria reaped the benefit of the literary work accomplished
by the scribes of Babylonia, and the most extensive collection of the
literary remains of Babylonia has come to us from a library collected
through the exertions of Asurbanibal, and discovered in 1849 by Layard
in the ruins of that king’s palace at Nineveh.
[Illustration: THE “MOABITE STONE.” ABOUT B. C. 850.
(_Paris, Museum of the Louvre._)
Monument dedicated to the god Kemôsh by Mesha, king of Moab (2 Kings
3:4 ff.), to record his victory over the Israelites in the days of
Ahab, and the restoration of cities and other works which he undertook
by command of his god. The stone, which measures 3 ft. 10 in. × 2
ft. × 14⅓ in., and contains 34 lines of inscription in the so-called
Phenician character, was found at Dibân (the Biblical Dibon, Num.
21:30; 32:34, etc.), in the land of Moab, by the German, Rev. F.
Klein, in 1868. Unfortunately, soon afterward it was broken in pieces
by the Arabs, but about two thirds of the fragments were recovered by
the Frenchman, Clermont-Ganneau, and it is possible to give a nearly
complete text of the inscription from the paper impression which was
taken before the stone was broken.]
The basis for the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, as they
are called from the wedge-shaped characters, was laid by George F.
Grotefend early in this century, whose system was further worked out
with great ingenuity by Edward Hincks, Jules Oppert, and Sir Henry
Rawlinson. These pioneers have been succeeded by a large coterie of
scholars in all parts of the world, who are still busy studying the
large amount of material now forthcoming for the elucidation of the
past. Not merely have we learned much of the public and official
events and religious ideas and customs during the period covered by
the Babylonian and Assyrian Empires, but through thousands of little
clay tablets that formed the legal and commercial archives deposited
for safe keeping in the temples, an insight into the life of the people
has been obtained, of their occupation, of their business enterprise
and commercial methods, and of many phases of social life, such as
the position of women and slaves, of the manner in which marriages
were contracted and wills drawn up. Perhaps the most characteristic
feature of the remarkable civilization that arose in the Valley of
the Euphrates is the domination of the priesthood over all except the
purely political interests of the people. Thus the priests, as scribes,
as judges, as astronomers, as physicians, brought that civilization to
its high degree of excellence, while under their guidance, likewise,
the religion of the country developed from a crude nature worship to
an approach to a monotheistic conception of the universe. The heir
of the Babylono-Assyrian empire was Persia, which, from the days of
Cyrus till the advent of Alexander, swayed the fortunes of the ancient
world. In all that pertains to art and architecture, Persia remained
largely dependent upon Babylonia. Extensive excavations conducted at
Susa by Dieulafoy, about ten years ago, and quite recently continued
by M. de Morgan, have proved most successful in revealing the general
nature and interior decoration of the great royal palace at that place.
In brilliant coloring of the brick tiles which, as in Babylonia,
formed the common building material, the Persians passed beyond the
Babylonians and Assyrians. One of the most interesting rooms in the
Louvre at Paris is that devoted to the exhibition of the colored wall
decorations from the palace at Susa, representing such various designs
as a procession of archers and a series of lions. The columns still
standing at Persepolis have long been famous; and it is here likewise
that the first cuneiform inscriptions were found which, couched in
Persian, Median, and Assyrian, formed the point of departure for the
decipherment of cuneiform scripts.
EGYPTIAN RESEARCHES.—The civilization of Egypt rivals in age and
grandeur that of Babylonia and Assyria. Here, witnesses to the past
that survived in the shape of obelisks and pyramids gave scholars in
this century a good start in the work of unraveling the fascinating
narrative of Egyptian history. Notwithstanding this, our present
knowledge of the history is due largely to the remarkable series of
excavations which have been conducted in Upper and Lower Egypt since
the early decades of this century, and which continue with unabated
activity at the present time. The stimulus to Egyptian research was
given by Napoleon in 1798, who, when setting out upon his Egyptian
expedition, added to his staff a band of scholars entrusted with
the task of studying and preparing for publication the remains
of antiquity. The result was a monumental work that forms the
foundation of modern Egyptological studies. Another direct outcome
of the expedition was the discovery of the famous Rosetta stone, in
1799, which, containing a hieroglyphic inscription accompanied by a
Greek translation, served as the basis for a trustworthy system of
decipherment of the ancient language of the Nile. The Frenchman, Jean
François Champollion, and the Englishman, Dr. Thomas Young, share
the honor of having found the key that unlocked the mystery of the
hieroglyphic script. As in the case of Babylonian archæology, so here,
excavations and decipherment went hand in hand. A few years after the
advent of Botta at Mosul, Mariette inaugurated in Egypt a series of
brilliant excavations under the auspices of the French government.
About the same time the German government sent Richard Lepsius on an
expedition to Egypt, which resulted in the establishment of a large
Egyptian Museum at Berlin. In 1883 England entered the field through
the formation of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, and since that time a
large number of cities in Lower Egypt, in the Fayum district, and in
Upper Egypt have been unearthed. Year after year W. Flinders Petrie,
Edouard Naville, F. L. Griffith, and others have gone to Egypt and
returned richly laden with material that has found its way to the
Museum at Ghizeh, to the British Museum, to Boston, to New York, and
to the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. The activity of the
French was continued after the death of Mariette, through Gaston
Maspero, E. Grebaut, J. DeMorgan and E. Amelineau, so that the mass of
material at present available for Egyptologists is exceedingly large.
[Illustration: RUINS OF PHILÆ, OR PHARAOH’S BED, ON AN ISLAND IN THE
NILE.]
The cities of Memphis and Thebes have naturally come in for a large
share of these excavations. Through the texts discovered within the
pyramids at Thebes and the surrounding district, the history of the
early dynasties was for the first time revealed. At Balas and Nagadah,
a short distance to the north of Memphis, the excavations have brought
us face to face with the indigenous population of the Nile that
maintained its primitive customs long after those who founded the real
Egyptian Empire had established themselves in the country. In the
district of the Fayum, notably around Arsinoe, at Hawara, Illahun, and
Gurob, traces of early foreign influence—Phœnician and Greek—were
discovered, while in Lower Egypt the towns of Naukratis and Tanis
represent extensive Greek settlements made in Egypt as early, at least,
as the seventh century B. C. Through the magnificent illustrations in
the tombs of Beni-Hassan, which have recently been carefully copied by
English artists, almost all phases of ancient Egyptian life have been
revealed. Though dating from the eleventh and twelfth dynasties,
the picture that they afford applies to earlier and later periods as
well. Thus, through the work done in all parts of the ancient empire,
the links uniting the earliest period to the sway of the Ptolomies and
the invasion of the Romans have been determined. Wonderful chapters,
replete with interest, have been added to the history of mankind, and
though much remains to be done, we are much nearer to a solution than
ever before of that most important problem as to the origin of the
mysterious Egyptian culture. We know for a certainty that when the
Egyptians came to the region of the Nile, they found a fertile district
populated by a people, or by groups of people, that had already made
some progress on the road to civilization, though not yet knowing
the use of metals. The Asiatic origin of the Egyptians is regarded
as clearly established by so eminent an archæologist as M. DeMorgan,
though it is likely that his views will be somewhat modified by further
research. The infusion of Greek ideas, we now know, begins at a much
earlier age than was formerly supposed, so that it becomes less of a
surprise to find, even before the advent of Alexander, considerable
portions of Egypt absorbed by foreign settlers.
A noteworthy feature of archæological work in Egypt during the past
decade has been the discovery of a vast amount of papyri containing
long lost portions of Greek literature. The famous work of Aristotle
on the Constitution of Athens and the poems of Bacchylides may be
mentioned as the most notable among these discoveries, and the sources
from whence these treasures have come seem still far from being
exhausted.
GREEK RUINS.—The mention of Greek literature leads one naturally
to speak of the work done in this century in that land which stands
so much nearer to us and to modern culture in general than either
Babylonia or Egypt. While, thanks to the activity and industry of Greek
and Roman historians, the records of the inspiring history of the Greek
states during their most glorious epoch are well preserved, the earlier
periods were enveloped in doubt and obscurity, while of the remains
of Greece, of her beautiful temples and her famous works of art,
comparatively few vestiges remained above the soil.