Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/425

396 number, so that, with the vowels, his contribution amounted to a hundred. These apparently include the twenty-live (correct) compound syUables already men- tioned. In the present Memoir he added a hundred and eighteen new values (sixty-eight correct), so that he claims to have discovered by his own unassisted ingenuity no less than two hundred and eighteen values. He acknowledges that he is indebted to llawlinson for seventv-seven in addition to these, and he states that they were substantially aii'reed as to the siu'nilication of one hundred and seventv-seven simis.^ They disaLjTee as to forty-nine ; but the disau'reement, generally speakhig, does not extend to the consonantal value ; it arises from the doubt as to whether the sign conveys the value of e or (>, as Ilincks thoutjfht, or of z' or u. as KawUnson maintained. Hhicks fi"ankly con- fesses he received seventy-seven values from Rawlinson after ISOO ; Init liawlinson has not told us how many values lie borrowed from Ilincks durini>* that year. The i)rbability is they were extremely few, if any : the transliteration and translation of the inscriptions taken at Behistun and from the Black Obelisk were made l^efore the Appendix was sent to press, and neither could have l)een accomplished unless liawlin- son had j)reviously drawn up a. very comprehen- sive list for his own use. Xo doubt he took full advantage of Hincks's paper to introduce occasional corrections and emendations, and it is to be regretted that he has not li'ratified our curiosity as to the extent of his obliu'ations.

^ These fifrures may he arrantxed thus :

100 si;^ais valued by Hincks up to 1S50. i In these Ilincks and

77 signs taken from liawlinson. I Rawlinson agree.

49 signs, decipherer not mentioned ; values disputed, lis signs newly valued. o44 discussed in present paper.