Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/172

Rh Since the mission of M. Dieulafoy, a most advantageous concession has been made to France. In 1895 the Shah accorded to that favoured nation an exclusive right to carry on archaeological excavations throughout the whole of his dominions. This concession was extended hi August 1900, and was rendered perpetual, with the farther privilege of retaining all the artistic objects discovered M. de Morgan, who had already acquired a great reputation by his travels in Persia and his work in Egypt, was appointed in 1897 to carry on the explorations, and with the protection of a Persian garrison he began his operations in December of that year. They are still in progress, but he has been able to publish an account of his discoveries up to the spring of 1899. He has been described as the Prince of Excavators; and it is indeed a most fortunate circumstance that this work should have fallen into such unusually competent hands. He has ample time at his disposal, and sufficient means to employ no less than five hundred men at a time. He is satisfied to carry out his undertaking in a patient and painstaking manner; He has the merit of keeping his imaginative faculty under severe restraint, and we have little cause to apprehend an apparition of the airy fancies that so many of his predecessors have substituted for solid toil.

In his excavations on the site of the Apadana, he has been unable to verify the existence of the three bases belonging to the inner row of the northern colonnade. They were, however, among the first to be discovered by Mr. Loftus, and as he did not belong to the inventive group of travellers there can be no doubt they are to be found. De Morgan is of opinion that the northern