CHAPTER III

Decipherment of the First or Persian Column: Tychsen to Lassen: A.D. 1798-1886 149

Niebuhr gives the first Old Persian Alphabet 149

The predecessors of Grotefend: Tychsen and Münter: A.D. 1798 151

Hager on Babylonian Inscriptions: A.D. 1801 163

Lichtenstein thinks them Arabic 166

Grotefend deciphers ‘Hystaspes, Darius, and Xerxes’: A.D. 1802 168

Discoveries on the site of Babylon: A.D. 1808-11 192

Rich’s Two Memoirs 193

St. Martin introduces Grotefend to France: A.D. 1822 195

Rask identifies two letters: A.D. 1826 202

Burnouf’s ‘Mémoires sur deux Inscriptions’: A.D. 1836 204

His Translations 215

Lassen’s ‘Altpersischen Keilinschriften’: A.D. 1836 220

Holtzmann’s charge of plagiarism 223