'Magasin Encyclopédique' of Millin.[1] It was subsequently reported in the well-known Vienna periodical, the 'Fundgruben des Orients';[2] and in 1815 Grotefend had the opportunity of explaining the matter in his own words in an appendix to Heeren's 'Historical Researches.'[3]
The careful investigations of Münter were found of great service by his more successful follower. Műnter had already pointed out that the inscriptions belonged without doubt to the period of the Achaemenian dvnasty; that the words were separated from each other by a diagonal wedge, and that the writing ran from left to right. He had directed special attention to the word of seven letters, and to the fact that it preceded in many cases another identical to it but terminating with some unknown grammatical inflexion. He had suggested that the former probably signified some such title as 'king of kings' and that the royal name must be looked for in the word that precedes it, an opinion he only abandoned in view of the difficulties already explained.
- ↑ Year VIII (1803), v. 438. De Sacy's essay is accompanied by a plate giving the text, transliteration and translation of the B and G inscriptions of Niebuhr.
- ↑ Vols. iv. and v.
- ↑ Historische Werke, xi. 325. We have used the edition of 1824 as the more accessible. On comparing it with the earlier edition of 1815, we have not found any difference of importance. Both editions contain the same two plates. No. 1 is taken from De Sacy, as above, and edited by Tychsen. It gives Grotefend's alphabet exactly as it subsequently appeared, but without the later emendations of the sr and k, together with the long list of defective signs. At the bottom is a transliteration of the Xerxes inscription (G). No. 2 is by Grotefend. It gives the cuneiform text in the three species of writing: of the inscriptions of Xerxes and Cyrus, and that on the Caylus Vase, with the translation. The three columns are divided so as to show the words of each species that correspond to one another. Kaulen says Grotefend's essay appeared in the second edition of 1805 Assyrien nnd Babylonien, 1899, p. 126). Weisbach says its first appearance was in 1815 (Achἄmenideninschriften Zueiter Art, 1890, p. 3). We have not found the second edition in the British Museum.
