behistun

Updated: June 9, 2025

No professors in colleges as yet knew anything of the cuneiform character; but there was a ci-devant clerk of the East India House a modest unknown man of the name of Norris who had made this little-understood subject his study, to whom the tracings were submitted; and so accurate was his knowledge, that, though he had never seen the Behistun rock, he pronounced that the cadet had not copied the puzzling inscription with proper exactness.

Samuel Smiles - Self help; with illustrations of conduct and perseverance