in the neighbourhood§ of Ham adan, the Ecbatana of king
Astyages, and on the walls of palaces, and>tm the colossal
pillars of Persepolis, and on the ruins icif bother /.cities
within the limits above traced. Beyond these boundaries
are a few inscriptions of a similar kind, where they are
probably-relics of the widely-extended / conquests of the
Achsememdae, as on the isthmus which joins Africa to
Asia.* The region of cuneiform inscriptions*” says
Lassen, m holds, geographically, the middle place between'
those of Semitic alphabets, towards the Westy and the-
various Indian systems of writing found in the remote
East. These three kinds .of writings, eoihprise all .the
alphabets of Upper Asia and of .the ancient world, and
the discovery of the arrow-headed writing was wanting
to complete the palaeography of Asia.”t
Modern travellers in the East have been struck,: at
an early period, by the singularity of these1" characters,
and brought with them copies-”of many “inscriptions, in
the hope of their future' elucidation. The first .collectofi
were * Cornelius le Bruyn, and the indefatigable- Garsten
Niebuhr, and at a much later time, Sir Robert Kerr Potter
made great additions to the earlier collections. ■ Lastly,Hie
enterprising Schultz, who perished in hi® travels through
Kurdistan, had collected forty-two copies of cuneiform
inscriptions, chiefly in the various parts of ancient Media
which he had traversed.J Inscriptions in the same characters,
but grouped in different ways, have been published
many yearn, since, in Europe, from the Babylonian
bricks.
The arrow-headed characters are found in three different
sorts of. combinations, one, which is, apparently, the most
* Of the same kind was, doubtless, the inscriptions in Assyrian, letters, .which
Darius engraved on. a pillar near the Bosphorus, as a memorial of his Scythian
campaign
t Die - Alt-persiSchen Keil-Inschriften von Persepolis. Entzifferung des
Alphabets und Erklärung des Inhalts, &c. von D. Chr. Lassen. Bonn. 1886.
JE. Bumouf/Mem. sur dens Inscriptions Cunéiformes trouvées près d’Ha-
madan. Paris, 1836.—Ritter, Erkunde von Asien. B. 6. s. 74. .
simple, is thafc'principallytfefeitfin j P Persepolitan* inscriptions’'*
tIlR»kh$$kw0-> are termed, coinjeeflurally, Median
and* Assyrian. I f was in thosduf the former kind that
the first stbp was made towards an elucidation, by the
-'dfis’c.oy&ry of ,'fhe, native's': of and Darius, the credit
of which belongs to/Dr. ©rotefend* They were found in
*t«w'o SSTcriptions. The name of Achaemenes was traced by
.jttfv Saint-Martin,■ flat, r eadV-afterwards more’ correctly by
Rask, who mad^-t'to^b#Aqamn^6‘| i ' The word “ khshah”
was fbund to'*re^reseht king, and, thefede kii% of kings,
"gave.*the plural'^eTm&ation o^ the genitive •, in'ariam,
- Zend and Sanskrit.^ Hystas|||f%h^'‘;r’ead Vyshtaspa, by
«SainfrMartin, and by Grate f4nfcf Gb&htaspa/ The^e^ words,
which4, wdresdete'eted chiefly by looking for “them in positions
■ w4iere'*they wefe' dikel^0fli$|be found, affOfdedttoHihe two
onti&dstet mentioned ^considerable numbe^bf the vowel*
and1"' cOnbaHantS ! of' the arrbw-headefi alphabet^ which were
‘ekffl-fhfb’ytfdrtun^ and gradually corrected'.
the* great-mass, o f thoMhscriptionsI remained,' und^
cyphered; and the grammMicajWcoflstfti‘cfi'dn of tfl^l lan-
which, thley were^writtnuftlibugh it was pdrdeived
toibe allied to Zend, was unknown^hen M. Burnout under-
Itookithe investigation'. His,rreseardhess:f©omprise several inscriptions'of.
considerable lengths* * The firStwas a double
inscription, found at the 'foot-* of Mount El wand, consisting
of - thfee double groupes of arrow-headed characters,
f eiagraved on a blockaf, red granite. The three groupes
are in- different styles of writing ; the formey is that of the
most simple kind; the two others in §J|e kinds as yet
1 undecyphered, which are supposed*- th-ougihHlittl e is yet
known on the subject,'to represent the words Of languages
more allied to the Semitic or Assyrian. The first is a
double inscription, consisting df twenty lines,-containing,
on one side, the name- of Darius, and on the other, that
of Xerxes. I shall not attempt to trace therfsteps by
* The discovery of Grotefend was made known In an appendix to Heeren’s
v<*Ideen, in 1805,—See also Bellino.
t Corresponding with the G reek biv, and Latin, or um.