Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/324

Rh ablest representative. So far as we are aware, the pamphlet on the 'Lautsystem des Altpersischen' was his first effort in this department of knowledge. In it he explains the principle that regulates the employment of the consonants in substantially the same manner as Hincks and Eawlinson had done in the previous year. He had evidently arrived at his conclusion independently, and it is remarkable that he was not better informed of the progress that had recently been made. It might be supposed that the attention of everyone interested in the subject would be directed to the appearance of Eawlinson's ' Memoir,' which was then eagerly expected. It was in fact published before May 1847, and Oppert's tract was not sent to press till July.

With the publication of Eawlinson's Memoir, in 1846-7, the decipherment of the Persian inscriptions may be considered accomplished. In 1850, he could write that there ' are probably not more than twenty words in the whole range of the Persian cuneiform records upon the meaning, grammatical condition or etymology of which any doubt or difference of opinion can at present be said to exist.' The value of his own contribution to the general result received the fullest recomiition. Professor Max Mliller declared to Canon Eawlinson that, 'thanks mainly to your brother, we have now as complete a knowledge of the grammar, construction and general character of the ancient Persian language as we have of Latin.' He was greeted as the ChampoUion of the new decipherment, a position he has retained to a large extent in Germany and France. So late as 1895, M. Oppert found