Ancient symbols on a 2,700-year-old temple which have baffled experts for over a century have been explained by Trinity Assyriologist Dr Martin Worthington.
The sequence of 'mystery symbols' were on view on temples at various locations in ancient city of Dūr-Šarrukīn, present day Khorsabad, Iraq, which was ruled by Sargon II, king of Assyria (721-704 BC).
© From New York Public Library.Late 19th century drawings of the eagle and bull symbols published by French excavator Victor Place.
The sequence of five symbols - a lion, eagle, bull, fig-tree and plough - were first made known to the modern world through drawings published by French excavators in the late nineteenth century. Since then, there has been a spate of ideas about what the symbols might mean.
They have been compared to Egyptian hieroglyphs, understood as reflections of imperial might, and suspected to represent the king's name - but how?
Dr Martin Worthington of Trinity's School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies has proposed a new solution in a paper published this month [April 26th] in the
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
He argues the Assyrian words for the five symbols (lion, eagle, bull, fig-tree and plough) contain, in the right sequence, the sounds that spell out the Assyrian form of the name 'Sargon' (šargīnu).Sometimes, the same archaeological site uses only
three of the symbols (lion, tree, plough), which Dr Worthington argues again write the name 'Sargon', following similar principles.
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