” Mode of Writing: August 1850 375 Rawlinson: Second Memoir prepared: A.D. 1849 377 ” The Two Lectures: Jan. and Feb. 1850 379 ” Earliest Assyrian Translation from Black Obelisk 382 ” Publication of Third Column of Behistun Inscription: A.D. 1851 386 The Services of Hincks and Rawlinson compared 396 The Claims of De Saulcy examined 398 Conclusion 407 APPENDICES A.—Table showing the different values assigned to each letter of the Old Persian Alphabet 420 B.—Table showing the true values of the Old Persian letters and the author and date of their decipherment 426 C.—Table showing the different values given to each sign of the Susian (Median) Syllabary 430 INDEX 443 PLAN OF PERSEPOLIS _Frontispiece_ [The Plan of Persepolis is inserted by kind permission of Lord Curzon of Kedleston from his work ‘Persia and the Persian Question.’] INTRODUCTION The decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions of Western Asia is worthy of being included among the great achievements of the nineteenth century. Only a hundred years ago it was still possible to maintain that there was no such thing as cuneiform writing, and that the mysterious figures that went by that name were merely a grotesque form of ornamentation. We propose to recount the method pursued by the long succession of scholars who in the end succeeded in solving the perplexing problem that was presented to them. Few, if any, of those who, in the beginning of last century, occupied themselves with the subject, could have imagined the brilliant discoveries that would result from their tedious labours. In these pages we shall be chiefly occupied with the inscriptions of the Achaemenian kings. They were the first to be discovered and studied, and they possess the peculiar advantage of being, with few exceptions, trilingual. They are, in fact, generally found in three parallel columns, and it was seen that the characters and no doubt the languages also varied in each. It was observed that the writing in one of the columns was much simpler than in the others; the number of different signs being limited to about forty-two. It was assumed that they were alphabetical, whereas there could be little doubt from their great number that the signs in the other columns were syllabic or ideographic. Notwithstanding the comparative simplicity of the former, it was not till forty years