Die Münzen der griechischen, parthischen und indoskythischen Könige von Baktrien und den Ländern am Indus

Carl Ludwig Grotefend (22 December 1807 – 27 October 1874) was a German

epigraphist Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

and numismat. He played a key role in the decipherment of the Indian

Kharoshthi The Kharoṣṭhī script, also spelled Kharoshthi (Kharosthi: ), was an ancient Indo-Iranian script used by various Aryan peoples in north-western regions of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely around present-day northern Pakistan and ...

script on the coinage of the

Indo-Greek The Indo-Greek Kingdom, or Graeco-Indian Kingdom, also known historically as the Yavana Kingdom (Yavanarajya), was a Hellenistic period, Hellenistic-era Ancient Greece, Greek kingdom covering various parts of Afghanistan and the northwestern r ...

kings, around the same time as

James Prinsep James Prinsep FRS (20 August 1799 – 22 April 1840) was an English scholar, orientalist and antiquary. He was the founding editor of the ''Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal'' and is best remembered for deciphering the Kharosthi and B ...

, publishing ''Die unbekannte Schrift der Baktrischen Münzen'' ("The unknown script of the Bactrian coins") in 1836.Article published in ''Blatter fur Munzkunde'' 2 (no. 26), 1836, 309-14 + pi. XXIV. He was the son of the famous philologist

Georg Friedrich Grotefend Georg Friedrich Grotefend (9 June 1775 – 15 December 1853) was a German epigraphist and philologist. He is known mostly for his contributions toward the decipherment of cuneiform. Georg Friedrich Grotefend had a son, named Carl Ludwig Grot ...

, who made the first successful attempts at deciphering

Old Persian cuneiform Old Persian cuneiform is a semi-alphabetic cuneiform script that was the primary script for Old Persian. Texts written in this cuneiform have been found in Iran (Persepolis, Susa, Hamadan, Kharg Island), Armenia, Romania (Gherla), Turkey ( Van Fo ...

. It is thought that Carl Ludwig Grotefend independently accomplished the first decipherment of the Kharoshthi script (1836, in ''Blatter fur Munzkunde'', Germany) around the same time as Prinsep (1835, in the ''Journal of the Asiatic society of Bengal'', India), as Grotefend was "evidently not aware of the latter's article". In 1839, he wrote ''Die Münzen der griechischen, parthischen und indoskythischen Könige von Baktrien und den Ländern am Indus'' ("The coins of the Greek, Parthian and

Indo-Scythian Indo-Scythians (also called Indo-Sakas) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples of Scythian origin who migrated from Central Asia southward into modern day Pakistan and Northwestern India from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 4th centur ...

kings of Bactria and the countries on the Indus"). File:Decirpherment of Kharoshthi by C.L. Grotefend in 1836.jpg, Decirpherment of Kharoshthi by C.L. Grotefend in ''Blatter fur Munzkunde'' in 1836. File:Die Münzen der griechischen, parthischen und indoskythischen Könige von Baktrien und den Ländern am Indus (coins).jpg, Coin plate, by Carl Ludwig Grotefend (1839) File:Artemidoros coin obverse with transliteration.jpg, Kharoshthi on a coin of

king Artemidoros Aniketos, reading "Rajatirajasa Moasa Putasa cha Artemidorasa". The obverse has the same legend in Greek.

Works

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References

{{Authority control German philologists Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities 1807 births 1874 deaths