Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/183

 meaning into them. The curious feature of his system is that some of his letters actually turned out to be correct, such as his α, u, s, or sch. But as these results are purely accidental he cannot be allowed to have made any real contribution to cuneiform decipherment.

Immediately after the appearance of his tract, it was assailed by Witte, a professor of his own university, who seized that occasion to revive the old view of Dr. Hyde that the cuneiform characters were simply designed as a fantastic ornamentation and had no other signification. On the appearance of Grotefend's system, Tychsen. had the singular magnanimity to abandon his own and he became one of the principal exponents of the theories of the younger scholar.

In the same year (1798) that Tychsen published his 'Lucubratio,' a paper on the same subject was read before the Royal Academy of Copenhagen, by Dr. Mὕnter. Mὓnter's father, who was a clergyman and a poet, was born at Lὓbeck and died at Copenhagen, where he was pastor of the German church. His son Frederick was born at Gotha, in 1761, but his youth was passed at Copenhagen, and many of his works were written in Danish and subsequently translated into German. Like his father, he entered the Church, and became a Professor of Theology at Copenhagen, and eventually rose to be the Bishop of Seeland (1808). He was a very prolific writer, especially upon theological subjects. His works include a 'History of Dogma' (1801), a 'History of the Danish Reformation' (1802), and the last, which is considered to be the most important, was on the 'Symbols and Works of Art of the Early Christians,' published in Altona, 1824. He also acquired considerable reputation as a philo-