Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 95:377 (Jan 1938)
Article: The Work Behind an Archaeological Expedition
Author: James L. Kelso

BSac 95:377 (Jan 38) p. 40

The Work Behind an Archaeological Expedition

James L. Kelso

The layman, reading an article on Biblical archaeology, little realizes the technical preparation that has gone into the making of the staff of an archaeological expedition that is at work in Palestine. The staff of such an expedition must contain a variety of scholars. There is the linguist, whom everyone thinks of first, although in Old Testament archaeology so few inscriptions are found that his work is light in volume. But this very scarcity of inscription material makes his work all the more difficult, and therefore he must be trained to decipher all the languages of the ancient Orient. Since written languages came in about the middle of the fourth millennium B.C., they had a long and complicated history by the time our Bible was completed.

Egyptian commercial influence was very strong in Palestine, and at certain periods Palestine was an actual part of the Egyptian Empire. The Israelites spent several centuries in Egypt before the Exodus, and ever after Egyptian complications constantly attend their history. Even as late as the period between the Testaments, Palestine was for many years an integral part of the Egyptian Empire, i.e., under the early Ptolemaic dynasty. Thus for Biblical archaeology the linguist of the expedition must know the Egyptian tongue as written in all periods of its history.

We usually assume that such linguistic work is in the field of history, but, since archaeology deals with every phase of human life, the linguist must be able to read not only history, but anything in any field-religion, commerce, literature, personal correspondence, science, music, art, etc. Not

BSac 95:377 (Jan 38) p. 41

only must he read this Egyptian tongue, but, to do so, he must be able to handle any one of the three major scripts in which it was written.

Along with Egyptian, the archaeologist must also be able to read the Babylonian language, for it was the international language of the early ancient world, and furthermore it played its part in influencing the Semitic tongues of Palestine. The acquiring of this language, however, does not mean simply the mastering of another tongue but of a strange script and a peculiar writing medium. Here the Egyptian pen and papyrus are laid aside, and in their place a clay tablet and pointed stylus are the writing materials. The mastery of this new cuneiform script, however, gives the linguist an entree into a new “Babel” of languages, for with this script ten languages can be written-that is, after the grammar, vocabulary and style of these ten have been mastered. They are Sumerian, Accadian or Babylonian, Elamite, Horite, Luwian, Hittite, Proto-Hittite, Balaic, Urartian and Aramaic. This sc...