CUMMmG 6(
68>. In the New Testament, cumin is mentioned in Matt, xjdii, 28, where our Saviour denounces the Scribes and Pharisees, who paid their ** tithe of mint, and anise, and cumin,'" but neglected the weightier matters of the law. In the Talmudical tract Demai (ir, ly comin is mentioned as one of the things regu- larly tithed.— Kitto; Fairbaim. (See Celsii Eierob, i, 616 ; Pewtjf Cydop. s. v.) See Abomaucs.
Ctunmixig, Albxandrr, a Congregational minis- ter, native of Freehold, N. J., was bom 1726. He en- tered the ministry 1747, and was made colleague pas- tor of the Presbyterian Church in New York, Oct. 1750. Owing to troubles in the Church, both pastors reqaested to be dismissed by a committee of the Synod in 1753, and Mr. Cumming was relieved Oct. 25, 1768. He was ordained collegiate pastor with Dr. Sewall, of the Old South Church, Boston, Feb. 25, 1761, where he remained until his death, Aug. 25, 1768. ^e publish- ed his ordmation sermon at Boston (176X), and ilnt- nuidvenwM on Rev, Mr. CrosweWt late Letter, etc, (1768).— Sprague, Atmab, i, 462.
Cnneifotixi (wed^e-thaped) or Arrow-headed Inscriptions, is the name now generally applied to those angular letters first found engraved on Persepol- itan relics (see Ker Porter's Travels; Rich's Memoir), and lately in great abundance stamped on Babylonian bricks [see Brick], and carved on the Assyrian mon- oments. See Assyria* The most copious collections of these legends are contained in the great works on the Ninevite antiquities by Botta and Flandin (Ifonti- mente de Ntneve, Par. 1847, sq.), and by Layard (^«yr- um Inscriptions, Lond. 1851), and more lately those of Loftus (Inscriptions from the Ruins of Susa, Lond. 1852) ; a considerable collection is also given by Bich (Memohr on Bab, Lond. 1839). The character is the simplest and earliest known, and was in common use by the Medes, Persians, Assyrians, and Chaldaeans in the most ancient -times. Like the Egyptian hiero- glyphics, or rather hieratic, it seems to have been chiefly employed in monumental inscriptions, there being doubtless another form (like the demotic') better adapted to common use. It appears to have £Gdlen into dbuse when, on the fall of Babylon under Alex- ander, these miglity empires ceased to have any great national annals to record. Within the past eighty years the first specimens found their way into Europe from the fragments of Persepolis, and at length en- gaged the attention of several German philologists, especially Tyschen ; but Dr. Grotefend, of Hanover, was the first who obtained any clew to their decipher- ment (see Yaux's Nineveh and PersqfoUs, p. 891 sq.). According to him, this mode of writing is formed of two radical signs, the wedge and the an^, suscepti- ble, however, of about thirty different combinations ; and consists of three varieties, the Persian, the Me- dian, and the Assyrian, distinguished from each other by a greater or less complication of the characters, the last being the most elaborate : others make still fur- ther subdivisions, e. g. the AchsmsBuian, Babylonian, Medo-Assyrian, Elymsan, Scythian, Arian, etc. The whole of each alphabet, however, is obviously reduci- ble to a single element, the wedge, which is found either singly or in groups of two, three, or more, and placed vertically, horizontally, or obliquely, in the sev- eral characters. It is evidently of Asiatic origin, is written from right to left, and is alphabetic. (See an elucidation of the process of deciphering these letters by Layard, Nineveh, ii, 134 sq.) The other great la^ borer in this field of discovery is Col. Rawlinson, of England, who has so completely succeeded in confirm- ing and extending the results arrived at by others, that the meaning of these inscriptions, with the excep- tion of the exact rendering of some of the proper names, may now be said to be established beyond dispute. (See his Commentary on the Cuneiform Inscriptions, read before the Roy. As. Soc., and published in a separate
3
CUNEIFORM
Assyrian Cuneiform Alphabet,
Fonn.
SowiA.
Form. I Sound.
t>4
• a
5!
If
[■
<
a,ya
4=
1'
ti»
b
^
^
Sf
)
^
g,kh
Bf
y aB,«,j
m
■
0
)
iSI
,d
>l
m
!
i|
!»
h
•=!
>k
m
hu, w, 7
^
tf
]
W
J
t<J
r
SJ
3ff
)
^
<T
0
W
^t
w,h,a,r
fM
kk
^
fr!
w
tt
> ^ -,
B
^ch
^
^
fi!
A
J
^
si
t
^
?RT
^
l^
) .
^
^T
W.rri.
in^
(*''
<H»<|f
)
»«
iD^
!•
*m
m
4
\ .
>h
^
h
f \
>^
m
i,T
y
sn
1,8
^
.sh
m
7
m
fif
)
^
m
r
Wl
1
>
"
&
in,w
•i>
a, a
-i^
)
'^
na
■.•^
"
$M<
V wuah
'>
1
r<K
form, Lond. 1860.) Dr. Hincks has also successfhlly prosecuted these inquiries. (See his papers in the Transactions of the Roy. Irish Acad. vol. xxii.) The inscriptions are usually trilingual as well as triliteral, the alphabets and enthre structure differing in each version. See Behistun. The language is Shemitic, but corresponds with neither the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, nor Arabic, as they have come down^ to us. The inscriptions of various periods and at diflTerent places differ considerably in their form and diction.
CUNEIFORM
The following epecimena of identificatioii of
mentioned in the Old Test with those occurring In