A literary history of Persia

into the shade by the more brilliant results of Lassen ; but,besides reading the name of the Supreme Being, Ahuramazda,and some other words, and pointing out that the language otthe inscriptions, though akin to that of the A vesta, was notidentical with it,and that the writing did not, as a rule, expressthe short vowels except when they were initial,he first calledattention to the list of names of countries contained in thegreat inscription of Darius. This last indication, communicatedto Lassen in the summer of 1835, was fruitfully utilised by thelatter for the fuller and more accurate determination of thevalues of the letters,and the demonstration of the existence ofan inherent short a (asinSanskrit) in many of the consonants,so that, for example, S.P.R.D. was shown by him tostand for Sparda. Within the next four years (up to 1840)Lassen's results had been further extended, elucidated, andcorrected by Beer and Jacquet, while new materials collectedby the late Claude James Rich, British Resident at Baghdad,had been rendered available by publication, and Westergaardhad brought back fresh and more accurate copies of thePersepolitanIt isinscriptions.unnecessary in this place to trace further the progress ofthis branch of Persian studies, or to do more than mention thelater_discoveries of Loftus (1852) and Dieulafoyof the study of(looA) +' at busa ; 'the Fphotographs taken atFurther progressOld Persian.^., r ,1rersepolis in 1070 and the following years byStolze, and published at Berlin in 1882 in two volumesentitled 'Persepolis ;and the additional light thrown on theOld Persian language and script by such scholars as Bang,Bartholomae, Bollensen, Foy, HaleVy, Hitzig, Hubschmann,Kern, Miiller, Menant, Sayce, Thumb, and others. Nor needthe wild theories as to the talismanic character of the inscriptionspropounded by M. le Comte de Gobineau in his Traitedes hritures cuneiformes (Paris, 1864) detain us even for amoment. A few words must, however, be said as to Oppert'singenious theory as to the origin and nature of the script.