Rev. Epwarp Hincxs on Persepolitan Writing. 131 
POSTSCRIPT. 
Since the above was written, I have applied myself to the third Persepolitan 
writing, which agrees in character, and, to a great extent at least, in language, 
with the Babylonian inscriptions, and to the Assyrian writing in Schiitz’s 
inscriptions. Having as yet a very scanty supply of data, I have not been able 
to prepare alphabets of either of these modes of writing. I have, however, 
ascertained that they both agree in principle with the second Persepolitan. In 
both, some of the characters represent elementary sounds and some combinations. 
In both, two or more characters are used to represent the same sounds. In 
both, no vowel is omitted, but vowels and consonants are repeated in two con- 
secutive characters. The number of elementary characters is greater in both 
these modes of writing than in the second Persepolitan. In the latter, a single 
vowel was rarely expressed after a syllable terminating with the same vowel, but 
this was commonly done in the Babylonian and Assyrian, in which, of course, 
the simple vowels were of much more frequent occurrence. In the second Per- 
sepolitan, m was expressed by w, but in the Babylonian by 6, which accounts for 
the same name being written Berodach in the Second Book of Kings, and 
Merodach in Isaiah. I have found the name of Babylon in the inscription on 
a piece of baked clay, shaped like a barrel, brought from the ruins, and in those 
on a few of the bricks.* I have also found the name of Nineveh on the bricks 
brought from that place. Both the Assyrian and Babylonian languages appear 
to have much in common with the Semitic languages ; but some of their roots 
are common to them with the language of the second Persepolitan inscriptions, 
with which also they have many characters in common. I have found it to be a 
general rule, though it admits of some exceptions, that where a character occurred 
in two or more alphabets, it had the same value, or nearly so, in all of them. 
Thus, the pa of the second Persepolitan is pa in Assyrian, and ba in Babylonian ; 
and so in other instances. The first Persepolitan alphabet, on the contrary, had 
nothing in common with any of the others.f 
* m,w, b, and p, are all expressed alike in Babylonian. The name of Babylon, variously 
written, is found on all the bricks from that city. 
+ It may be proper to state here that the body of the paper was written in the beginning of 
May, this postscript in the beginning of June, and the notes at the end of August. 
r2 
