Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/236

Rh additional portion does not correspond to that found in the last paragraph at Van. The wliole of it was copied long before by Le Bruyn (No. 131). Burnouf next observed that the inscription on the sculptured stairs— the A of Niebuhr—bears a strong resemblance to those just mentioned; but the beginning is clearly imperfect. Ouseley, however, had published a five-lined inscription from Persepolis, which corresponds exactly to the Darius at Hamadan; and Grotefend pointed out that it was probably the beginning of the A inscription. With this addition the A runs for a time parallel to the Hamadan, while at its close it corresponds to the Le Bruyn. Burnouf had thus a considerable number of copies of the same text, and by careful collation he sought to eliminate the errors due to the engraver or the transcriber. By these means he obtained a correct recension of the Hamadan inscription upon which his work was chiefly founded. But there was another to which he made frequent reference, especially towards the close of his Memoir. This is the I inscription of Niebuhr, which is copied from the outside wall, on the southern side of the great platform of Persepolis.

It will be recollected that Grotefend had called attention to this inscription in 1832, and had pointed out that it evidently contained a long list of proper names. Whether this suggestion ever reached Burnouf it is impossible to say, but it is certain he made it an early object of study; and from it he derived the cuneiform sign 'B,' with which he signed his letters to Lassen.

The method he pursued to determine the value of an unknown sign was to collect all the words in which