Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/391

362 Memoir of greater value than the first, and De Saulcy made his appearance in this field of inquiry by a paper communicated to the A(*ademie des Inscriptions, and by two essays that have exposed him to much criticism.

Hincks, as we have seen, had worked exclusively upon the Persei)olitan and Babylonian texts ; but the great discoveries of Botta and Layard soon diverted attention to the moiv ample materials that were begin- nhig to pour in from Khorsabad and Ninn-ud. We have alieadv alluded to the enormous inimber of different signs that were found to be employed in the Assyrian inscriptions — no less than six hundred and forty-two, according to liotta's (computation. It seemed hicredil)le that they could all convev diffei-ent shades of sound. Grotefend noticed that even in the third Persepolitian souk* signs appeared to l)e interchange- able, and therefore* presumably of similar value; and this peculiarity l)ecanie even more noticeable in Baby- lonian.^ Ilhicks, as we have seen, noticed ' the equivalence to each other of different lapidary charac- ters, which are constantlv transcribed by one and the same cursive character.' In a paper read before the Academic des Inscriptions in 184o, Botta explained that manv Assvrian characters of verv different form were frequently substituted for one another, and the inference* was that there are several signs to express the same, or nearlv the* same, scmnd. Eawlhison's atten- tion, up to the present, had been almost entirely fixed upon the Persian colunui of the Behistun inscription, and his version of it appeared early hi 1847. He saw that it afforded the 'only key to the decipherment of the Babylonian alphal)et.' - We have observed that Grotefend found himself practically limited to four proper names; Lihvenstern had only twenty to work

' Journal Asi'atifjue, 1?<4^, xi. l>47. ' ./. K. A. S, 1847, x. 24.