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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
In vol. xxix of the Abhandlungen der königlichen sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Professor F. H. Weissbach published a number of the inscriptions which appear above the figures supporting the throne of Darius the Great on his rock-hewn tomb at Naqsh-i-Rustam, nine or ten miles northwest of Persepolis. Three other tombs of the Achaemenian kings exist at Naqsh-i-Rustam, but they are unfortunately uninscribed. Three similar Achaemenian tombs are found at Persepolis itself, two in the mountain face immediately behind the palace platform and one, unfinished, a little way off towards the south. These tombs, being quite easy of access, have often been visited and described. They have always been believed to be lacking inscriptions. Two, the North Tomb and the Unfinished Tomb, have in fact no inscription, but the South Tomb has a well-preserved trilingual inscription which so far as the writer is aware has hitherto completely escaped notice. The inscription is found above the heads of the figures supporting the throne of the Great King, exactly as in the tomb-inscription of Darius the Great, but in a far better state of preservation.
page 375 note 1 This place in the Darius inscriptions at Naqsh-i-Rustam is occupied by the maǩiia. In the present case the Old Persian and Elamite versions are almost wholly destroyed. Mr. Davis's copy of the Babylonian gives: 
du-ma-a-a, with which is to be compared the full reading of the Darius grave a-ga-a amelga-du-ma-a-a (and matqa-du-u in the main inscription) as given by Weissbachin Abhandl. säcks. Gesell. d. Wissens., xxix, 32. Collation of both examples is evidently advisable before attempting to explain the different forms of the name as between the Old Persian and the Babylonian versions, or to identify the nation. The following name Karaka, as to which various guesses have been made, has lately appeared in a new inscription of Darius as engaged with the “Ionians” in transporting cedarwood from Babylon to Susa. The latest attempt to explain the last two names is to be found in some confident propositions of Herzfeld, , Archaeologische Mitteil. aus Iran, Band iii, 60, 61Google Scholar, who does not, however, consider the form matqa-du-u quoted above. According to him Karaka are the Karians, Makiya the people of Oman. [C. J. G]