Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/208

Rh from other sources—that is, twelve in all (if we admit the sr really rr before u, and the α which is h before α, i, u). In addition to these the α and b of Münter were known, though Grotefend erroneously changed the b into v; and hence in 1815 fourteen correct values had been reached. Grotefend was now able to transliterate after his own fashion all the inscriptions in the first style of writing. It was quite a different matter to translate the mass of strange words that began to pour in upon him. He had to seek for analogous words in Zend or Pehlevi, or in other languages he considered akin; and he was assured by many candid friends that this was an undertaking for which he was incompetent. In the excitement of the first discovery he was much more reckless in this matter than he afterwards became, when he had more experience of the difficulties of the task. We find that he contributed the following translation of the B and G inscriptions to the 'Göttingen Literary Gazette,' August 1802. B: 'Darius, the valiant King, the King of Kings, the Son of Hystaspes, the Successor of the Ruler of the World, in the constellation of Moro.' This figures in De Sacy in 1803 as follows: 'Darius, rex fortis, rex regum, rex populorum, Hystaspis stirps, mundi rectoris in constellatione mascula Moro rov Ized.' For G we have: 'Xerxes, the valiant King, the King of Kings, the Son of Darius the King, the successor of the ruler of the world.'

His next attempt at translation appeared in the 'Göttingen Literary Gazette' of August 1803. In the interval he had made a study of Niebuhr's inscriptions A, H and I, and compared the A with Le Bruyn's inscription No. 131, which it nearly resembles. The