ation, and it was not until
the close of the 18th century, after more accurate copies of the
Persepolitan characters had been furnished through Carsten Niebuhr, that
scholars began to apply themselves to their decipherment. Through the
efforts chiefly of Gerhard Tychsen, professor at Rostock, Frederick
Muenter, a Danish scholar, and the distinguished Silvestre de Sacy of
Paris, the beginnings were made which finally led to the discovery of
the key to the mysterious writings, in 1802, by Georg Friedrich
Grotefend, a teacher at a public school in Goettingen. The observation
was made previous to the days of Grotefend that the inscriptions at
Persepolis invariably showed three styles of writing. While in all three
the characters were composed of wedges, yet the combination of wedges,
as well as their shape, differed sufficiently to make it evident, even
to the superficial observer, that there was as much difference between
them as, say, between the English and the German script. The conclusion
was drawn that the three styles represented three languages, and this
conclusion was strikingly confirmed when, upon the arrival of Botta's
finds in Europe, it was seen that one of the styles corresponded to the
inscriptions found at Khorsabad; and so in all subsequent discoveries in
Mesopotamia, this was found to be the case. One of the languages,
therefore, on the monuments of Persepolis was presumably identical with
the speech of ancient Mesopotamia. Grotefend's key to the reading of
that style of cuneiform writing which invariably occupied the first
place when the three styles were ranged one under the other, or occupied
the most prominent place when a different arrangement was adopted, met
with universal acceptance. He determined that the language of the style
which, for the sake of convenience, we may designate as No. 1, was Old
Persian,--the language spoken by the rulers, who, it was known through
tradition and notices in classical writers, had erected the series of
edifices at Persepolis, one of the capitols of the Old Persian or, as it
is also called, the Achaemenian empire. By the year 1840 the
decipherment of these Achaemenian inscriptions was practically complete,
the inscriptions had been read, the alphabet was definitely settled, and
the grammar, in all but minor points, known. It was possible, therefore,
in approaching the Mesopotamian style of cuneiform, which, as occupying
the third place, may be designated as No. 3, to