330 Rev. John Kenrick on the ancient Inscriptions qfPersepolis. 



The Persepohtan inscriptions, even in the limited extent 

 to which they have been deciphered, confirm the veracity of 

 the Greek historians, attacked on very trifling grounds by some 

 zealous orientalists. It may seem strange that any one should 

 prefer the authority of Ferdousi, a poet of the eleventh century 

 after Christ, abounding in the wildest fictions, to the testimony 

 of Herodotus and Thiicydides ; and, in their persons, to that 

 of the whole Greek nation, who received their histories as au- 

 thentic ; yet such a preference has been given by Mr. Richard- 

 son, who in a Dissertation, prefixed to his Persian Dictionary, 

 charges the Greeks with exalting Xerxes from a satrap of Asia 

 Minor into a king of Persia, in order to magnify their own 

 glory in defeating him. Even a writer of more sober judge- 

 ment. Sir John Malcolm (History of Persia, i. p. 237.), insi- 

 nuates that vanity led the Greeks to call their invader king of 

 Persia, because the Isfundear of Persian history,whom he sup- 

 poses to be Xerxes, never ascended the throne. The inscrip- 

 tions of Persepolis furnish a decisive answer to these sugges- 

 tions, which indeed hardly needed such a refutation. 



Although the absolute amount of historical knowledge 

 gained by this discovery be small, its importance will not be 

 lightly valued by one who reflects that what has been esta- 

 blished may serve as the basis to a much larger superstructure 

 when materials offer themselves for its erection. Nor is it 

 improbable that such materials should be brought to light. 

 The Persian monarchs, we know, erected pillars with inscrip- 

 tions in Greek, as well as in the character and language of 

 their own country ; and should a single such monument be dis- 

 covered,by some such chance as that by which the Rosetta stone 

 was obtained, the result might be equally important. Perhaps 

 it is from Egypt itself, rather than from Persia, that we may 

 expect a ray of light to break on this obscure and interesting 

 subject. During their long occupation of that country, the 

 Persians must have made other double inscriptions, besides 

 that of the alabaster vase, which commemorates Xerxes ; and 

 the eager and enliffhtened research which is now making into 

 the antiquities of Egypt, may incidentally solve another pro- 

 blem. The discovery of a cuneiform inscription, accompanied 

 by hieroglyphics, would dispel the doubt which hangs over 

 the subject we have been considering, and afford a beautiful 

 example of those unperceived connections, which pervade the 

 whole system of human knowledge, and so much enhance the 

 value of every fresh acquisition. 



Since writing the above I have seen in the Asiatic Register 

 of the present month, December 1828, a translation of a paper 

 by M. St. Martin, in the Journal Asiatique, containing an 

 account of a ch'scoverv bv a traveller of the name of Schulz, 



of 



