ancient Inscriptions qfPersepolis. 323 



ingiy. A monument in cuneiform characters, found at Tak- 

 kesra, near Bagdad, and published by Millin, {Monumens 

 inedits, i. p. 58.) he interpreted as a ncenia or funeral dirge, 

 and gave a Latin translation of it ; I need hardly say, with no 

 better success than the author, who professed to have disco- 

 vered a version of the 100th Psalm, in the hieroglyphics of 

 the Portico of Dendera. Lichtenstein, applying his alphabet 

 to the Babylonian bricks, read some of their inscriptions into 

 passages resembling the Koran, and hence concluded that they 

 were all of later origin than the time of Mahomet. 



Grotefend, Professor in the Gymnasium of Frankfort on the 

 Main, returned to the more cautious methods of Tychsen and 

 MUnter ; and to him we owe the first complete analysis of the 

 alphabet, and the first successful attempt to read the inscrip- 

 tions into the words of a known language. No separate work 

 has been published by him, but in 1800 a paper was read 

 before the Royal Society of Gottingen, entided " PrcEvia de 

 Cuneatis, quas vocant, Inscriptionibus Persepolitmiis legendis et 

 explicandis Relatio*." I do not know whether it has ever ap- 

 peared in their Commentarii, but an account of it may be found 

 by Silvestre de Sa9y, in the Magazin Encyclopedique, 1803, 

 p. 438 ; and by Saint Martin, in die Journal Asiatique, Fe- 

 bruary, 1823. Both these eminent orientalists concur in Grote- 

 fend's explanation ; M. St. Martin has corrected him in some 

 minor pqints, and interpreted some other monuments upon 

 the same principles. Grotefend has given a pretty full detail 

 of the manner in which he arrived at his conclusions, in an 

 Appendix to the Ideen iiber die Politik, S)X. of Heeren, Pro- 

 fessor at Gottingen, 1815. It will be interesting to follow his 

 steps, and to observe how a process purely tentative has led 

 to results, satisfactory from their harmony with each other and 

 their accordance with all attendant circumstances, and con- 

 firmed by independent authority. The inscriptions on which 

 he made his experiment are found in the second volume of the 

 French translation of Niebuhr, pi. xxiv., and are marked 

 there B and G. It must be observed that all the inscriptions 

 at Persepolis in the cuneiform character are triple; that the 

 sense is the same in each is evident, because the groups of 

 diameters correspond, though the principle of combination of 

 the arrowheaded strokes is different, and probably tlie lan- 

 guage is so. Grotefend's explanations ap}ily only to the first, 

 ill which the words are distinguished iVoin one anotlier by an 

 obli{|ue character, and which he concludes to be the oldest, as 

 it lakes up much more room than the others. 



• An abstract of Prof. Grotefend's paper will be fouiiil in the Phil. Mai;, 

 vol. XV. p. «.'■>. — Kdit. 



2 T 2 1 have 



