Editing Arthur de Gobineau (section)

==== Criticism of Gobineau's Persian work ====
Only with his studies in ancient Persia did Gobineau come under fire from scholars.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=326}} He published two books on ancient Persia, ''Lectures des textes cunéiformes'' (1858) ("Readings of Cuneiform Texts") and ''Traité des écritures cunéiformes'' (1864) ("Treatise of Cuneiform Fragments").{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=326}} Irwin wrote: "The first treatise is wrong-headed, yet still on this side of sanity; the second later and much longer work shows many signs of the kind of derangement that is likely to infect those who interest themselves too closely in the study of occultism."{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=326}} One of the principal problems with Gobineau's approach to translating the cuneiform texts of ancient Persia was that he failed to understand linguistic change and that Old Persian was not the same language as modern Persian.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=327}} His books met with hostile reception from scholars who argued that Gobineau simply did not understand the texts he was purporting to translate.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=327}}

Gobineau's article attempting to rebut his critics in the ''[[Journal asiatique]]'' was not published, as the editors considered his article "unpublishable" as it was full of "absurd" claims and vitriolic abuse of his critics.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=327}} During his second time in Persia, Gobineau spent much time working as an amateur archeologist and gathering material for what was to become ''Traité des écritures cunéiformes'', a book that Irwin called "a monument to learned madness".{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=327}} Gobineau was always very proud of it, seeing the book as a ''magnum opus'' that rivaled the ''Essai''.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=327}} Gobineau had often traveled from Tehran to the Ottoman Empire to visit the ruins of [[Dur-Sharrukin]] at Khorsabad, near [[Mosul]] in what is now northern Iraq.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=327}} The ruins of Khorsabad are Assyrian, built by King [[Sargon II]] in 717 BC, but Gobineau believed the ruins were actually Persian and built by [[Darius the Great]] some two hundred years later.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=328}}
[[File:WP Paul-Émile Botta.jpg|thumb|211x211px|alt=Painted portrait of Paul Émile Botta looking at the artist. | French archaeologist [[Paul-Émile Botta]] (pictured) regarded Gobineau's Persian work as nonsense.]]
French archeologist [[Paul-Émile Botta]] published a scathing review of ''Traité des écritures cunéiformes'' in the ''[[Journal asiatique]]''. He wrote the cuneiform texts at the Dur-Sharrukin were Akkadian, that Gobineau did not know what he was talking about, and the only reason he had even written the review was to prove that he had wasted his time reading the book.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=329}} As Gobineau insistently pressed his thesis, the leading Orientalist in France, Julius von Mohl of the ''Société Asiatique'', was forced to intervene in the dispute to argue that Gobineau's theories lacked "scientific rigor" while he admired the "artistry" of Gobineau's thesis.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=330}}

Continuing his interest in Persia, Gobineau published ''Histoire des Perses'' ("History of the Persians") in 1869.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=330}} In it he did not attempt to distinguish between Persian history and legends treating the ''[[Shahnameh]]'' and the ''[[Kush Nama]]'' (a 12th-century poem presenting a legendary story of two Chinese emperors) as factual, reliable accounts of Persia's ancient history.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=330}} As such, Gobineau began his history by presenting the Persians as Aryans who arrived in Persia from Central Asia and conquered the race of giants known to them as the ''Diws''.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=330}} Gobineau also added his own racial theories to the ''Histoire des Perses'', explaining how [[Cyrus the Great]] had planned the migration of the Aryans into Europe making him responsible for the "grandeur" of medieval Europe.{{sfn|Irwin|2016|p=331}} For Gobineau, Cyrus the Great was the greatest leader in history, writing: "Whatever we ourselves are, as Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, Europeans of the nineteenth century, it is to Cyrus that we owe it", going on to call Cyrus as "the greatest of the great men in all human history".{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=187}}