he gave of them in the ‘Fundgruben’ speedily attracted attention, and the facsimile of one in red jasper from Nineveh was published by Dorow in 1820. Grotefend called attention to the well-marked differences in the cuneiform writing that characterise these specimens, and which remove the third Persepolitan still farther from them than even from the most complicated Babylonian.[333] These opinions he expressed in his letter to Dorow, and in a tract on the ‘Elucidation of certain Babylonian Cylinders’ included in the same publication (1820).[334] After his promotion, in the following year, to the rectorship of the Lyceum at Hanover (1821) other studies began to engage his time. He wrote a History of his Academy (1833); he edited the fragments of Sanchoniathon (1836); and he dabbled somewhat deeply in such matters as the Oscan and Umbrian languages (1835-1838). He had not, however, entirely forgotten his old subject, and in 1832 he attempted a translation of the I inscription, which he sent to the ‘Göttingen Gazette.’ He recognised that it contained a list of geographical names, which, however, he was unable to render correctly; but he had the merit of attracting the attention of other scholars to their existence, and it was from them that Lassen was afterwards enabled to make such remarkable progress.[335] In 1837 he began to contribute a succession of papers to the Scientific Society of Göttingen on his old subject, many of which were afterwards republished in separate form. He was now sixty-two years of age, and his mind was, no doubt, less able to grapple with the series of discoveries that were just on the point of being made. In the previous year (1836) Burnouf and Lassen had simultaneously published their Memoirs on the cuneiform decipherment that soon carried the subject far beyond the point at which Grotefend had left it some thirty years before. Grotefend accepts the general results, but without much evidence of enthusiasm.[336] The reading of ‘Auromazda’ is now satisfactorily established; but he clings to his _ogh_ with unabated affection.[337] On the other hand, he suggests the surrender of the _sr_ in ‘Kurus,’ and reads _r_ or _rh_. As regards ‘Achaemenian,’ the utmost he will concede is that the Greeks probably derived it from ‘Akhâosô-schôh,’[338] and to do this he reluctantly softens his _tsch_ to a soft _c_ to give the _s_; but he will on no account admit the true reading, _n_.[339] He still contends that the languages of the three Persepolitan columns are related to each other, but he sees that the first, though resembling Zend, is not identical with it. He entirely rejects the idea already broached that the third is Semitic, and he adheres to his conviction that none of the three can be called syllabic or ideographic in the strict sense of those terms.[340]