A historical laboratory; how the expert historian does his . oken or written, became dead languagescenturies ago, and have therefore had to be deciphered in recenttimes. The story of such recovery of whole ages and peoplesreads like a romance. Greek and Latin have never been wholly lost languages, butlanguages like Babylonian or Assyrian (written in cuneijorm)or Egyptian (written in hieroglyphic or hieratic) were com-pletely lost to us. Not only did they have to be deciphered, butthey are still being carefully investigated and our ability toread them is constantly improving; some of the
A historical laboratory; how the expert historian does his . oken or written, became dead languagescenturies ago, and have therefore had to be deciphered in recenttimes. The story of such recovery of whole ages and peoplesreads like a romance. Greek and Latin have never been wholly lost languages, butlanguages like Babylonian or Assyrian (written in cuneijorm)or Egyptian (written in hieroglyphic or hieratic) were com-pletely lost to us. Not only did they have to be deciphered, butthey are still being carefully investigated and our ability toread them is constantly improving; some of them, like Hittite orancient iEgean (Cretan), are still only partially continuing the investigation of these lost languages, the A HISTORICAL LABORATORY historian of ancient times must deal with a constantly growingseries of entirely new monuments and documents, such as ouryoung Roman soldiers letter, which are every year being dis-covered in Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa. Suchdiscoveries require him to explore and excavate the ancient. One of The University of Chicago Expeditions photographing In-scriptions on the Upper Nile under Professor Breasteds Direction buried cities and cemeteries of these lands,—especially inGreece, Italy, and the Near East (Egypt and Western Asia).Very little has been done by modern institutions to aid thehistorian in meeting this situation successfully. It has not beenfully recognized by university boards of trustees that, pre-cisely like the natural sciences, so history, in carrying on theinvestigation of the career of man, especially in ancient times, 6 A HISTORICAL LABORATORY demands a fully equipped research laboratory. The trustees ofThe University of Chicago, however, have cordially supportedand encouraged the plans of Professor James H. Breasted andhave enabled him to organize such a historical laboratory, whichis known as the Oriental Institute. Housed in a building of itsown, the new institute has begun its wor
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