Georg Grotefend

June 9, 1775 (age 77)

Münden, Germany

Heyne's recommendation procured for him an assistant mastership in the Göttingen gymnasium in 1797. While there he published his work De pasigraphia sive scriptura universali (1799), which led to his appointment in 1803 as prorector of the gymnasium of Frankfort-on-Main, and shortly afterwards as conrector. In 1821 he became director of the gymnasium at Hanover. In 1823–1824 appeared his revised edition of Wenck's Latin grammar, in two volumes, followed by a smaller grammar for the use of schools in 1826; in 1835-1838 a systematic attempt to explain the fragmentary remains of the Umbrian dialect, entitled Rudimenta linguae Umbricae ex inscriptionibus antiquis enodata (in eight parts); and in 1839 a work of similar character upon Oscan (Rudimenta linguae Oscae). In the same year he published an important memoir on the coins of Bactria, under the name of Die Münzen der griechischen, parthischen, und indoskythischen Könige von Bactrien und den Ländern am Indus. He soon, however, returned to his favourite subject, and brought out a work in five parts, Zur Geographie und Geschichte von Altitalien (1840-1842). Previously, in 1836, he had written a preface to Wagenfeld's translation of the spurious Sanchoniathon of Philo Byblius, which was alleged to have been discovered in the preceding year in the Portuguese convent of Santa Maria de Merinhao. But it was in the East rather than in the West that Grotefend did his greatest work. The cuneiform inscriptions of Persia had for some time been attracting attention in Europe; exact copies of them had been published by the elder Niebuhr, who lost his eyesight over the work; and Grotefend's friend, Tychsen of Rostock, believed that he had ascertained the characters in the column, now known to be Persian, to be alphabetic. At this point Grotefend took the matter up. His first discovery was communicated to the Royal Society of Göttingen in 1800, and reviewed by Tychsen two years afterwards. In 1815 he gave an account of it in Heeren's great work on ancient history, and in 1837 published his Neue Beiträge zur Erläuterung der persepolitanischen Keilschrift. Three years later appeared his Neue Beiträge zur Erläuterung der babylonischen Keilschrift. His discovery may be summed up as follows: (1) that the Persian inscriptions contain three different forms of cuneiform writing, so that the decipherment of the one would give the key to the decipherment of the others; (2) that the characters of the Persian column are alphabetic and not syllabic; (3) that they must be read from left to right; (4) that the alphabet consists of forty letters, including signs for long and short vowels; and (5) that the Persepolitan inscriptions are written in Zend (which, however, is not the case), and must be ascribed to the age of the Achaemenian princes. The process whereby Grotefend arrived at these conclusions is a prominent illustration of persevering genius. A solid basis had thus been laid for the interpretation of the Persian inscriptions, and all that remained was to work out the results of Grotefend's brilliant discovery, a task ably performed by Burnouf, Lassen and Rawlinson. Grotefend died in 1853.

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