Note 666 — Chapter V · DECIPHERMENT OF THE SECOND OR SUSIAN COLUMN—WESTERGAARD TO OPPERT—A.D. 1844-52
Reading edition
M. Oppert cannot always be taken seriously where his own claims are concerned. Writing in 1859, he says of the Median: ‘Tous nos devanciers, y compris M. Norris, l’ont prise pour une écriture distincte de celle des Assyriens’ (p. 71). Leaving out of account Norris’s identification of 47 of the characters, De Saulcy had pronounced them to be ‘identical’ in 1848. Oppert now compares 97 Median signs and 8 ideograms with both Babylonian and Assyrian groups.