Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/97

 own—but it will be impossible ever to tell whether it has vowels, or anything else about it. In order to illustrate his opinion concerning the various directions in which the characters might be read, he made a copy of the inscription that runs round the window of the Palace of Darius. This is the first complete inscription ever copied, and unfortunately it contributed much to impede the progress of decipherment. Although consisting of only one line, it is in three different scripts, and its inspection served at once to confirm the opinion of Chardin that the wedges might be turned in any direction—for to the left of the window we see the thick end of the wedge at the bottom; on the right of the window it is in the reverse position; while on the top it is turned to the left. It was long before it was discovered that this inscription was to be read, like the legend running round a coin—the line to the left being written running up; and the line to the right running down; so that in reality the wedge always preserves the same direction.

He visited Naksh-i-Rustam, and was the first to give an account of the Inscriptions on the second tomb. The one above consists, he says, of fifteen lines; the other near the cornice and the door is shorter. He induced his valet, by an offer of three crowns, to explore the interior, and he was probably the first European who ever accomplished the task. he was encountered at the narrow entrance by an immense flight of pigeons, at first mistaken for demons, who were terrified by his intrusion and hastened to make their escape. He reported that the cave measured forty paces in a straight line from the entrance and thirty on either side. Facing the entrance he noticed the lids of three sarcophagi upon the