It was only natural that the accuracy of many of these results should have been somewhat strenuously contested. M. Renan, for example, could not be induced to believe in the polytheism of the Semitic race, though the images of their gods began to crowd the Louvre in bewildering numbers. M. Halévy disputed the very existence of the Sumerian race and language, and the controversy he excited has not even yet wholly died away. Others cannot reconcile themselves to the subordinate position of the Semite to the Turanian in laying the foundations of all modern culture, and they still endeavour to show that the two races were at least contemporary workers from the earliest times, and contributed equally to the great result. All this is perhaps symptomatic only of a passing phase of irritation, for the evidence on the other side seems too overwhelming to be long withstood.[3] It is because the trilingual inscriptions have rendered such important service that we have considered it worth while to recount the history of their discovery after they had lain forgotten for some two thousand years, and to explain the steps that were taken in the work of decipherment by the many scholars whose patient toil was ultimately rewarded with success. TRILINGUAL CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS CHAPTER I THE DISCOVERY OF ACHAEMENIAN RUINS AND INSCRIPTIONS—BARBARO TO LE BRUYN, A.D. 1472-1718 The trilingual inscriptions of the Achaemenian Kings of Persia that have led to the decipherment of the whole cuneiform literature were found chiefly at Persepolis and Behistun; though a single line at Murgab and a short inscription at Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, also contributed to an important extent. Other inscriptions were observed at Van in Armenia; at Naksh-i-Rustam, a few miles from Persepolis; upon the site of the ancient Susa, and so far afield as Egypt. They are all monumental: chiselled upon the walls of buildings to record the name of the king who erected the edifice. They are written in three different methods of cuneiform writing, and reproduce the same text in three different languages.