Georg Friedrich Grotefend

Georg Friedrich Grotefend (born June 9, 1775 – died December 15, 1853), was a German teacher, archeologist and linguist, who made important discoveries in the Old Persian language. He partially deciphered the ancient Persian cuneiform script, translating 10 out of 37 signs.

Life

Georg Grotefend was born at Munden in Hanover (today's Germany). His father, Johann Christian Grotefend, was the head of the shoemakers guild in Hannoversch-Münden. Grotefend was educated partly in his native town, partly at Ilfeld, where he remained until his twentieth birthday.

In 1795 he entered the University of Göttingen to study theology and philology. There he became a friend of Christian Gottlob Heyne, Thomas Christian Tychsen and Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren. 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 pro-rector of the gymnasium of Frankfurt, and shortly afterwards as rector.

At the same time he started to work on the transcription of the Persian Cuneiform script, the work he became famous for. He published his results in a series of papers in the early 1800s.

He continued his career mostly working on Latin and Italian language, though he paid the attention to his own language, shown by his Anfangsgründe der deutschen Poesie, published in 1815, and his foundation of a society for investigating the German language in 1817. In 1821 he became director of the gymnasium (lyceum) at Hanover, a post which he retained till his retirement in 1849.

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 language (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 Baktrien und den Ländern am Indus.

He soon, however, returned to his favorite subject, and brought out a work in five parts, Zur Geographie und Geschichte von Alt-Italien (1840-1842.). Previously, in 1836, he had written a preface to Wagenfeld's translation of the spurious Sanchoniathon of Philo of Byblos, which was alleged to have been discovered in the preceding year in the Portuguese convent of Santa Maria de Merinhão.

He retired in 1849 and died on December 15, 1853, in Hannover, Hanover (today’s Germany).

Work

Although Grotefend did most of his work on Italian, Latin, and German languages, it was the Old Persian that he became most famous for. The cuneiform inscriptions of Persia had for some time been attracting attention in Europe; exact copies of them had been published by the elder Carsten Niebuhr, who lost his eyesight over the work.

It was Niebuhr who brought the copies with inscriptions to Europe, which he found during the explorations of the ruins of the 2,000-year-old palace of the Persian kings in Persepolis, in 1756. The inscriptions were written in three different languages, Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite. Grotefend took the task to decrypt the first language – Persian.

Interestingly enough, Grotefend arrived to this task by chance. He made a bet with his friend Rafaello Fiorillo, who claimed that it was impossible to read a language about which nothing is known, neither form nor content. Grotefend believed otherwise, and they made a bet. The choice of a language fell on cuneiform script.

Previously, Grotefend's friend, Oluf Gerhard Tychsen, believed that he had ascertained the characters in the column (what turned out 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.

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
5. that the Persepolitan inscriptions are written in Zend (which, however, is not the case), and must be ascribed to the age of the Achaemcnian princes

The process through which Grotefend arrived to his conclusions is a prominent illustration of a genius. He was able to pick out repetitive phrases, which were used to honor Persian kings. He then compared those letters with the kings' names, which he knew from Greek historical texts. Step by step he discovered ten letters. First word which he translated was Darayavahusch : chschayathiya (= king Darius).

In 1815 he gave an account of it in Heeren's 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.

Legacy

Grotefend laid the ground foundation in the decipherment of the Old Persian cuneiform script. He discovered 10 out of 37 letters. What remained was to work out the results of Grotefend's discovery, a task performed by Eugène Burnouf, Christian Lassen and George Rawlinson. It took additional 45 years to decipher the last 27 letters.

Publications

• Grotefend, Georg F. 1799. De pasigraphia sive scriptura universali. Gottingae : Dieterich
• Grotefend, Georg F. 1815. Anfangsgründe der deutschen Poesie
• Grotefend, Georg F. 1824. Latin grammar (2 vols.)
• Grotefend, Georg F. 1835-1838. Rudimenta linguae Umbricae ex inscriptionibus antiquis enodata (8 parts). Hannover: Libraria Aulica Hahnii.
• Grotefend, Georg F. 1837. Neue Beiträge zur Erläuterung der persepolitanischen Keilschrift. Hannover: Verlage der Hahn'schen Hofbuchhandlung
• Grotefend, Georg F. 1839. Die Münzen der griechischen, parthischen und indoskythischen Könige von Baktrien und den Ländern am Indus
• Grotefend, Georg F. 1839. Rudimenta linguae Oscae. Hannover: Libraria Aulica Hahnii
• Grotefend, Georg F. 1840. Neue Beiträge zur Erläuterung der babylonischen Keilschrift. Hannover: Hahn
• Grotefend, Georg F. 1840-1842. Zur Geographie und Geschichte von Alt-Italien. Hannover: Hahn.
• Grotefend, Georg F. 1845. Remarks on the wedge inscription recently discovered on the upper Euphrates. Madden and Malcolm

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Curtis J. & Tallis, N. 2005. Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia. University of California Press. ISBN 0520247310
• Iranica.com. Grotefend, Georg Friedrich. Retrieved on March 1, 2007, <http://www.iranica.com/articles/v11f4/v11f4004.html>
• Trigger Bruce G. 2006. A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521840767
• Wiesehofer, Josef. 2001. Ancient Persia. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 1860646751

External links

• Cuneiform and the Bible – An article by Lesley Adkins, October 2003
• Darius the Great and the Bisutun Inscription – On the history of decipherment of Persian cuneiform
• Decipherment of cuneiform – History of the decipherment of cuneiform
• Georg Friedrich Grotefend – Grotefend’s biography on Encyclopedia Britannica
• Old Persian Cuneiform – Description and origin of cuneiform

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Georg_Friedrich_Grotefend  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Georg Friedrich Grotefend"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.