Georg Friedrich Grotefend 1802 - first words (names Darius and Xerxes) Eugène Burnouf and Christian Lassen 1836 - alphabet Henry Rawlinson and Edward Hincks 1837 - first texts 1842 Paul Emile Botta discovered the city of Nineveh and the local archive and other scientists and in 1857, even the Royal Asian Society in London organized a competition in cuneiform reading and translation