Note 356 — Chapter III · DECIPHERMENT OF THE FIRST OR PERSIAN COLUMN—TYCHSEN TO LASSEN, A.D. 1798-1836.

Rich, p. 186, note. This statement is, however, too sweeping, for Grotefend always clearly distinguished two distinct kinds of Babylonian, corresponding to the cursive and the hieratic. Rich’s first and third are examples respectively of these two styles. The former, or cursive, occurs in lapidary inscriptions such as Rich has described; the second, or hieratic, on bricks and cylinders, and in the long inscription of Sir Harford Jones (the India House Inscription). Rich’s second species is not a distinct variety. Its peculiarity consists only in the ‘distortion of oblique elongation,’ due perhaps to the eccentricity of the engraver. (See Rawlinson in J. R. A. S. x. 24.)