Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/429

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400
CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS

all turn out to be <\llal)i<'.^ Bv thi- iiieau^ he arrived

ft ft

at the roii^onaiital ^ound of a liiiiidnHl and twelltv >iLriis wliir-li M. ^reliant <av< w(^i\^ L'eiierallv correct. When ltawhn-nn ]nil)H-hed lii> Syllabarhiin, in 18-31 (two vears hiter) I)e Saulcv o];-e!'ved that >ixtv-eii>lit of the^e OIK.' liundrcd and twentv si^'ii^ received the same vahies. Xot >ati^ricd with tliis success, lie >eeni< aetuallv to have tlKHiijht that Kawdinson had l.)ni-rowed them with- out aeknowledLHiient from him: •J'avais done lu et ])ul)lie avant ^I. liawlinsr)]! soixantcdiuit des valeurs exactes publiees pai- lui ; il eut etc de boii gout, peut- ctre, de prendre, lu^ fut-ce qu'une seide fois. La ])eine de (•iter mon nom."- It is, of course, quite impossible to admit the chiim< made r)n his Ijehalf. We have not ])een al)le to see the siii'iis to which reference is made, h)Ut it is quite certain that, in September 1849, there were not sixty-eii>ht sio-ns in the Persepolitau inscrip- tion still remaininii' unknown either to Hincks or liawliuM)]!. It nuist be recollected that De Saulcv's pamphlets appeared more than two years after Hincks had already accomplished a somewhat similar classifica- tion with a consideral)le measure of success ; and there- fore after the consonantal values of a lariii^ number of signs had long been correctly ascertained. On the other hand, the earlier papers of Hincks were quite accessible to De Saulcv, and we learn from Mold that they were well known in France a year before the appearance of his two i)ami)hlets.^ ' What,' asks M. Menant, ' did Eawlinson owe to De Saulcy's labours on the Assyrian text? It is impossible to say,' he answers, ' for Kawlinson has not given an account of his pre- liminary studies.'** Th'e answer is, however, much simpler than this. Eawlinson owes nothing to De

^ Menant, op. cif. pp. 141-5. ^ lievue Orientale^ loo. cit. p. 167,

^ Mohl, op. cit. Report, Aug. 1848. ^ Menant, op. cit, p. 149.