372 



June 25th, 1849. 



REV. HUMPHREY LLOYD, D. D., President, in the 

 Chair. 



Rev. Dr. Todd read a paper by Rev. Dr. Hincks, on the 

 Khorsabad Inscriptions, &c. 



This paper begins with pointing out the relationship of the 

 character used at Khorsabad to those of the other kinds of cu- 

 neatic writings ; all of which, with the exception of the first 

 Persepolitan, the author considers to be connected together. 

 The Khorsabad characters correspond to the complicated la- 

 pidary characters in the great inscription at the India House, 

 in the same manner as it was shown in a former paper that the 

 third Persepolitan characters do. They differ, however, in 

 most instances, from these; and it requires some attention to 

 the manner in which they are used, and to the words which 

 are common to the different classes of inscriptions, to avoid 

 falling occasionally into serious error. The language of all 

 these inscriptions is nearly the same, as is proved by the oc- 

 currence of the same words, preformatives, and pronominal 

 affixes in all of them. The Van inscriptions contain many 

 words found in the Assyrio-Babylonian, but not the prefor- 

 matives of verbs nor pronominal affixes; on the other hand, 

 they have case-endings attached to the nouns, and verbal ter- 

 minations, which characterize an Indo-European language. 

 The second Persepolitan characters resemble the Khorsabad 

 ones less closely than the others do ; but in the great majo- 

 rity of instances the connexion between them can be traced. 

 The language of these inscriptions differs decidedly from those 

 of the other classes. Having exhibited specimens of the cor- 

 responding characters in the several kinds of writing, and 

 explained the system by which he represents in European 

 characters their several sounds, he proceeds to illustrate by 



