[...] by searching for the names of ancient Persian kings in the parallel inscriptions [...] the names would have been pronounced approximately the same way in

[...] by searching for the names of ancient Persian kings in the parallel inscriptions [...] the names would have been pronounced approximately the same way in Old Persian and Akkadian. Compare also how Old Persian had been deciphered by Grotefend using a similar method. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Friedrich_Grotefend#Decipherment_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Friedrich_Grotefend#Deci... (An uncharitable reading of the story in the article is that the "Rawlinson method" consists of claiming credit for discoveries made by Hincks.)