3 
assigned presumptively to Xerxes the second letter was the 
same as the sixth, and the fourth the same as the seventh. 
The final s in Xerxes being rejected, as probably a Greek 
termination, and the a:: as a double letter being resolved into k 
and sell, the whole vras read KscherscJia. It is remarkable that 
Xerxes has been generally understood to be the Ahasuerus of 
the Book of Esther. The personal character, the wide domin¬ 
ion, the luxury, the pride, suit exactly, and when we reduce 
the name, as written in Hebrew, to its consonants, they come 
out KHSiinsH. Proper names undergo strange metamorphoses 
when they are heard in one language and taken down in 
another. Ki-li-su-tii is the Chinese way of writing Christ. 
The Greeks changed Chufu, the builder of the great Pyramid, 
into Cheops. If, then, Xerxes was the son, Darius was the 
father, three letters of his name, which in Hebrew is Dariush, 
being identical with those of his son’s name. 
The next step was to ascertain to what language the inscrip¬ 
tions belonged. Now the group of characters, which from its 
position was supposed to stand for King, begins with the same 
two letters as that which had been read Kkscherscha. It was 
necessary therefore to find, in the language of ancient Persia, 
a word for King beginning with these letters. In the Zend, 
the lano:uase in which the sacred book of Zoroaster was 
written, perhaps the oldest of the numerous dialects now called 
Aryan, it was found that Kscheio (the Persian Shah) was the 
word for King. The foundation thus laid was enlarged and 
built upon by subsequent enquirers, Lassen, Westergaard, and 
our distinguished countryman Sir Henry Kavvdinson. The 
names of Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, Darius II., Artax- 
erxes Mnemon, Artaxerxes Ochus have been read not only on 
monuments in Persia proper, but in other parts of the empire 
of the Ach^menidm. They have not only confirmed the ac¬ 
counts of the Greek historians, but have given us an insight 
into the institutions and ideas of the people. One circumstance 
is ])articularly striking in comparing the Persian with the 
Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions. The former are purely 
monotheistic, while the latter are steeped in polytheism. The 
following is the commencement of a dedicatory inscription by 
D 2 
