DECIPHERING OF THE PERSEPOLITAN CHARACTERS. 75 



have occupied, allowing always a certain latitude for the va- 

 riations of the comparative lengths of the different phrases 

 and expressions. By these steps it is not very difficult to 

 assure ourselves, that a shrine and a priest are denoted by 

 representations which must have been intended for pictures 

 of [the] objects denoted by them ; and this appears to be the 

 precise point of the investigation at which it becomes com- 

 pletely demonstrative, and promises a substantial foundation 

 for further inferences. The other terms god and king are still 

 more easily ascertained, from their situation near the name of 

 Ptolemy. 



" The most material points of the three inscriptions having 

 been thus identified, they may all be written side by side, and 

 the sense of the respective characters may be still further in- 

 vestigated, by a minute comparison of the different parts with 

 each other." * 



The foregoing detail, I submit, bears out the representa- 

 tion with which I introduced this particular subject The 

 process described is analogous, in almost every step, to a pro- 

 found and extensive inquiry in Physics. The experimental 

 investigation of a complex phenomenon in Chemistry or 

 Natural Philosophy ; an inquiry into the mode of formation 

 of a rock, distinguished by remarkable mineral characters and 

 organic remains ; or the determination of the affinities and 

 analogies, throughout the known animal or vegetable kingdom, 

 of a group of animals or of plants; would be conducted by 

 methods logically corresponding, in a specific manner, with 

 that adopted by Dr. Young. 



I must now briefly advert to the deciphering of the Cunei- 

 form or Arrow-headed characters of Persepolis, accomplished, 

 I believe, without the aid of any particular acquirements in 

 Science. The abstract method of inquiry to be employed was 

 radically the same as in the instance just related, as the object 

 was equally unknown with the former, or even still more so, 

 since none of the inscriptions was accompanied by a version 

 in a known language, and since no external aid, whatever, 

 was to be expected ; neither the Greek, the Latin, nor the 

 Persian writers ever mentioning these inscriptions or charac- 

 ters. Considering the immense complexity of the Egyptian 

 subject, however, there can be no doubt that the object of Dr. 

 Young's researches was by far the most difficult of attainment. 



The means employed in this investigation were purely lite- 

 rary and historical ; they were applied, however, with great 

 sagacity, by the antiquaries who successively adopted them. 



* Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, art. EGYPT: vol. iv. 

 p. 53, 54. 



