Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 03.djvu/266

CUNLIFFE 222 CUNNINGHAM together. The real and final discovery is due to Grotefend of Hanover, and dates from 1802. On Sept. 7 of that year he laid the first cuneiform alphabet, with its equivalents, before the Academy of Got- tingen. Then H. Martin found the gram- matical flexions of the plural and geni- tive case. The last and greatest of in- vestigators of this first alphabet was Rawlinson, who not only first copied, but also read, the gigantic Behistun inscrip- tion, containing more than 100 lines. Inscriptions in the Persian cuneiform character are mostly found in three par- allel columns, and are then translations of each other in different alphabets and languages called respectively Persian, Cambridge. He engaged in finance in the city of London and became a member of Cunliffe Brothers. He became director of the Bank of England in 1895, Deputy- Governor, 1911, and was Governor 1913- 1918. He was Lieutenant of the city of London, director of the North Eastern Railway Co., and patron of the living of Headley, Surrey. In 1915 he received the 1st Class, Order of St. Anne (Russia) ; in 1916, the Grand Cross, Order of the Crown of Italy; Grand Cross, Order of Redeemer, Greece; Grand Cordon Rising Sun, Japan. He was also made Com- mander of the Legion of Honor, France, and Commander of the Order of Leopold, Belgium. PER.SI AN BABYLON I AN o <i * # *r ►+ SCYTHIC 3 4 5 CUNEIFORM WRITING Median, and Babylonian; the Achaeme- nian kings being obliged to make their decrees intelligible to the three principal nations under their sway. The Persian consists of 39 to 44 letters, and is the most recent, the most ancient being the Babylonian. The cuneiform signs were originally pictures of objects and were first drawn in outline upon some vegetable substance, called in the native documents likhusi. Early in the history of Babylonia, clay was adopted as the substance upon which to write. On papyrus and leather it is quite easy to draw in outline a picture of any object; but it became more difficult to do this when clay was used, because the outlines of the object represented had to be pressed into it. The necessary result of this was that the shapes of the objects became altered, and reduced to their simplest form. CUNLIFFE, WALTER, BARON, a British financier, born in 1855, and edu- cated at Harrow and Trinity College, CUNNINGHAM, ALLAN, a Scotch poet and miscellaneous writer; born in Keir, Dumfriesshire, Dec. 7, 1784. When a youth he served as an apprentice to a stone-mason; but later became a reporter in London, and wrote "Sir Marmaduke Maxwell," a dramatic poem, and "Lord Roldan" and "Paul Jones," romances. His "Critical History of the Literature of the Last Fifty Years," and other books, prompted Sir Walter Scott to call him a genius. He died in London, Oct. 30, 1842. CUNNINGHAM, WILLIAM, a Scotch theologian; born in Hamilton, in 1805; educated at Duns and Edinburgh; and ordained minister at Greenock in 1830. He was called to Trinity College Church, Edinburgh, in 1834, and soon became one of the foremost leaders, alike on the plat- form and in the pamphlet, on the "Non- intrusionist" side in the great contro- versy that preceded the Disruption of 1843. He was appointed Professor of Theology in the Free Church College in 1843, of Church History in 1845, and its