Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/203

 or guessed, five, and these known values occurred in the order he expected; the first and third letters remained to be determined. It happens that Herodotus mentions that the name of Xerxes corresponded in sound to that of the Persian for 'warrior' or 'king'; and Grotefend noted that the first two letters in the words for 'Xerxes' and 'king' were the same in the inscriptions. He ascertained that the Greek letter ξ transliterates the Zend 'kshe'; but he could find nothing in the Zend vocabulary under 'kshe.' There were, however, several forms under 'kh,' 'sh,' which left no doubt that the first letter required should be read 'kh.' This assumption also enabled him to read the word for 'king' which had so loner attracted attention. Of the seven letters that composed it he now knew four, which occurred in the order

The Zend word for 'king,' 'khsheio,' corresponds almost exactly to the form thus reached, and it enabled him to add i conjecturally to his alphabet. No explanation of the third letter in 'Xerxes' had yet presented itself; but it nearly resembled the fourth and seventh in the word for 'king,' and the fourth in the signs for 'Darius'; and Grotefend presumed—eroneously, as it turned out— that they were the same. He observed that in Zend the aspirate is sometimes left out, and he thought the Zend kh sh e i o might very well be supposed occasionally to take an h. He accordingly conjectured that this was the value of the unknown letter, and he read kh sh e h i o h for 'king' kh sh h e r sh e for 'Xerxes,' and D a r h e a sh for 'Darius.' It was not, therefore, till this point had been