Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/216

Rh site of Nineveh and a few others at Borsippa. The account he gave of them in the 'Fundgruben' speedily attracted attention, and the facsimile of one in red jasper from Nineveh was published by Dorow in 1820. Grotefend called attention to the well-marked differences in the cuneiform writing that characterise these specimens, and which remove the third Persepolitan still farther from them than even from the most complicated Babylonian. These opinions he expressed in his letter to Dorow, and in a tract on the 'Elucidation of certain Babylonian Cylinders' included in the same publication (1820).

After his promotion, in the following year, to the rectorship of the Lyceum at Hanover (1821) other studies began to engage his time. He wrote a History of his Academy (1833); he edited the fragments of Sanchoniathon (1836); and he dabbled somewhat deeply in such matters as the Oscan and Umbrian languages (1835-1838). He had not, however, entirely forgotten his old subject, and in 1832 he attempted a translation of the I inscription, which he sent to the 'Gὃttingen Gazette.' He recognised that it contained a list of geographical names, which, however, he was unable to render correctly; but he had the merit of attracting the attention of other scholars to their existence, and it was from them that Lassen was afterwards enabled to make such remarkable progress. In 1837 he began to contribute a succession of papers to the Scientific Society of Gottingen on his old subject, many of which were afterwards republished in separate form. He was now sixty-two years of age, and his