Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/151

 twelve each; while sixteen plates are appropriated to inscriptions.

There can be no doubt of the high artistic merit of these drawings; but it must have been impossible within the tune to complete them upon the spot; and they have no doubt suffered in accuracy by subsequent elaboration. Sir James Fergusson indeed goes so far as to declare that they cannot be relied upon to decide any matter requiring minute acc uracy of detail, and he points out several 'of their many mistakes.' It may be doubted also how far their plans and measurements are absolutely trustworthy. There is certainly the most surprising and singular contrast between the doubt and hesitation expressed in the text and the confidence and minute execution displayed in the plates. The surveys indeed may be due chiefly to M. Coste: and it is possible he may not have communicated all the results of his investigations to his volatile companion. While the latter despairs of detecting the plan of the edifice at Murgab, or those of the Palaces of Darius and Ochus at Perseipolis, we find all three set down with the utmost precision upon the plans; and while the one traveller declares that all the tombs at Naksh-i-Rustam contain accommodation for an equal number of bodies, M. Coste was quietly making the plans that refute this statement. It cannot be admitted that the combined