Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/342

Rh before this identity was detected, and even such a practised copyist as Westergaard declared that the five different species of cuneiform writing then known ' differed from one another in the shape of nearly every letter or group,' ^ and considerable practice is still re- quired before their identity can be brought home to the eye. The similarity — to employ a less emphatic ex- pression — proved, however, of great assistance in enabling future inquirers to fix the value of the signs. Some time had yet to elapse before they could take ad- vantage of this discovery, for when De Saulcy wrote, the Assyrian (characters were themselves still undeciphered. De Saulcy 's work was criticised by Lowenstern in the 'Revue Archeologique ' (1850), where he sought to trace the affinity of Median to the Aramaic branch of the Semitic family, while he admitted that some of the endin<i[s mi^dit l)e traced in Pehlevi and New" Persian. He did not consider it to be the Median language, which, lie maintained, is properly represented by Zend ; and he suggested, as Mr. Rich had done before, that it might have been the dialect of Susa.- Holtzmann fully re- cognised that it contained Semitic elements, l)ut still he considered that it should be regarded as the mother of Pehlevi ; and he subsequently added that it was })robably the language of the court at Susa.^ Still the opinion of

and in June 1849 he added that a * very large proportion of the Median characters can be identified with A ssyrio-Baby Ionian characters, having nearly the samr phonetic values' (xxii. 4). Westergaard thought the writing originated in Babylon, * whence it spread in two branches, eastward to Susiana and northward to the Assyrian Empire, from whence it passed to Media, and last to ancient Persis ' (p. 273, Copenhagen edition). He thought the Median bore most resemblance to Assyrian writing, and Persian to Babylonian writing (if), p. 272 ; rf. Bonn edition, ]). 4).


 * Copenhagen ed. p. 271.

- AVeisbach, ]). 7; Mohl, Vint/t'SPpt ana (TEtwlef^^ i. 419; Atherueumj July 6 and September 7, 1S.*30. Cf. above, ]). 194.

^ Iloltznian's essays appeared in the Zp/Vxc//;*/// D.M.G, between 1851 and lt'o4. They are r»'ported by Weisbach and Mohl, loc. cit.