Decipherment of Cuneiform
◈Key Scholars
High school teacher who made the first breakthrough in Old Persian cuneiform.
Risked his life copying the Behistun inscription to complete Akkadian decipherment.
◈How Was It Deciphered?
Grotefend found a repeating formula "X, great king, son of Y" through pattern analysis. By matching known Persian king names (Darius, Xerxes) against the signs, he assigned phonetic values. The Behistun inscription was a Rosetta Stone in three languages — Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian. Persian decipherment results were applied to Akkadian in a chain reaction.
◈Decoded Characters
𒀭𒂗𒍪 𒈗𒆳𒆳 = d.EN.KI LUGAL.KUR.KUR = "Ea, king of all lands" — referring to Enki, Sumerian god of wisdom and water.
◈The Full Story
Around 75 BC the last cuneiform tablet was written. For 2,000 years, Mesopotamian clay tablets were complete mysteries. Some Europeans thought the signs were architectural decoration, not writing.
In 1802 Grotefend found the royal titulary formula on a bet. In 1857 Rawlinson completed Akkadian decipherment from the Behistun inscription.
The Code of Hammurabi, Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Biblical flood prototype all became readable. Grotefend was rejected by the academy for being an amateur.