ll 
_ 
179 
it was necessary to bring forward words, in which the alleged 
expletive could not be pretended to be properly a part of the 
word, there being no room for it either in the place where it 
was found, nor in any other part of the word, to which, accord- 
ing to the pretended law of transposition of vowels, it might be 
removed. Such were the instances of Ru-u-i-ha, for Ruha, 
**evening,” the Coptic Ruhe; and Aahu, for Aah, * the 
moon,” which the Greeks have transcribed by the single vowel 
A. Instances were also adduced, in which an ideagraphic 
character, or a consonant, appeared as an expletive in a pure 
Egyptian word; and also, an instance of two homophonous 
letters, which took different expletives, being interchanged, 
namely Tu and Ta, as formatives of the past participle, 
both of which, it was affirmed, should be read without the final 
vowel. 
The principle having been thus established in the age of 
the papyri, it was shewn, in the third place, that it was not 
confined to that age, but was recognised in the time of the 
twelfth dynasty, and even previously thereto. This was 
shewn by a collation of texts, which were repeated in dif- 
ferent steles, or in different parts of the same slab. It was 
shewn, in a variety of instances, that the same word was 
written sometimes with, and sometimes without, a vowel; 
which vowel was, according to the practice of the age of the 
papyri, the known expletive of the preceding consonant. It 
was argued that, ifa vowel so circumstanced should be re- 
jected as an expletive in the age of the papyri, it should be 
so also in the early ages to which the monuments now under 
consideration belonged. 
In order to explain the origin of this practice, it was 
affirmed that all the Egyptian phonoglyphs originally repre- 
sented syllables; and that, when a limited number of them 
was selected to represent the initial sounds in the respective 
syllables, they still retained their old names, as the sounds 
now appropriated to them could not be uttered alone. The 
