242 Rev. Epwarp Hincks on the three Kinds of Persepolitan Writing, 
given with perfect confidence, from the identity in form of its characters, and 
those of the cursive writing on the clay cylinders, barrels, &c., found at Babylon. 
Since the date of my last paper I have made considerable progress in deciphering 
both this cursive character, and the lapidary characters used on the Babylonian 
bricks, and in the great inscription of the East India Company. Although much 
remains to be done, I have thought it right to take the earliest possible oppor- 
tunity of communicating to the Academy the progress which I have already 
made. 
I should begin with stating that, in this field of discovery, I have no pre- 
decessor who has published anything to the purpose, except the venerable Pro- 
fessor G. F. Grotefend, who, very early in the present century, made a com- 
mencement in the deciphering of all the three kinds of Persepolitan writing: 
Not having seen his “ New Contributions to the elucidation of Persepolitan 
Wedge Writing,” published in 1837, I cannot state precisely in what degree 
he has anticipated me; but he must be admitted to have discovered the nature 
of the Babylonian characters, as partly syllabic and partly expressive of letters, 
and the fact that certain lapidary characters corresponded to certain cursive ones. 
He correctly transcribed the entire name of Darius into lapidary characters, 
though he did not, as I conceive, assign perfectly correct values to more than 
two of the five characters which it contains. He was, I believe, ignorant of the two 
important facts that, in this mode of writing, as in the Median, a syllable com- 
mencing with a consonant may take that consonant before it at the pleasure of 
the writer, s.sa being, for instance, used in place of sa, n.ni of nt, and the 
like; and that several equivalent characters might be in use to represent the 
same letter or syllable. I should not suppose that the cursive characters to which 
he gave correct values amounted to ten, nor that he assigned values approximating 
to the true ones to more than ten others. For the reason, however, which I 
have already given, I cannot speak confidently on this subject. About a year 
ago, a M. Lowenstern published a small work on the Babylonian character in 
Paris. I have not seen it; but, from a letter which its author published in the 
Literary Gazette, containing an account of his system, it is evident to me that 
he is far behind Grotefend. Dr. Seyffarth’s attempt is another complete 
failure. 
The data to which I have had access are, Ist, the Achemenian inscriptions 
