154 Rev. Epwarp Hinexs on the Number, Names, and Powers 
sounded when expressed, and even supplied when not expressed. Thus, the 
pair of leaves has for its subsidiary letter the quail ; its name is Yd, its general 
power I, pronounced as in Germany and Italy. When the quai follows it, it 
is for the most part to be regarded as absent, as in figs. 14 and 20. The former 
word was probably pronounced yom or yaum, not yim. In the case, however, 
of the name of “the kingdom of Judah,” from the list of countries conquered 
by Shishonk, at Karnac (fig. 61), we know that the quail ought to be sounded 
as U, YUTaHMeLeK;; and in the name of Ptolemy, as usually written (fig. 62), 
we must supply it, reading the pair of leaves 1-U, PTULMIUS. 
It ought to create no surprise that the principle of expletives should be 
retained in the Ptolemaic period; even under the Romans we have the clearest 
evidence of their continued use. In the Gnostic manuscript at Leyden, which 
contains words in the hierographic and Enchorial characters mixed together, 
with Greek transcriptions of several of them between the lines, the hierographic 
words are, for the most part, written with expletives. I will give one example. 
In col. 16, 1. 25, we meet with the hierographic word and transcription in fig. 
63. The six hierographic letters correspond to the six hieroglyphies in fig. 65. 
The concluding hieroglyphic character marks the termination of the word. 
These six are, according to the received alphabet, Ta-ha-nu ; but the word is 
Cav, Than. Here then, as in fig. 15, we have two syllables, as written, repre- 
senting an aspirated consonant, which did not exist in the Egyptian language ; 
and we have a vowel at the end, written but not sounded. We may remark, 
however, that though the principle was unchanged, an alteration had taken place 
in the names of the letters. The waved line has here the litwus ; in the age of 
the papyri it had the eagle ; and, vice versd, the semicircle had in old times the 
quail or lituus, but has here the eagle. 
There is no question that this mode of writing leaves a great uncertainty as 
to the proper mode of reading what is written ; not more so, however, than 
exists in the Hebrew and other languages where the vowels are omitted. It 
is, as I have already observed, an inconvenient fact that the Egyptian scribes 
adopted this system ; but it is a fact fully established by evidence, and we must 
endeavour to apply it properly to the reading and interpretation of hieroglyphics ; 
in the latter, as well as in the former of which, the knowledge of it must neces- 
sarily produce material changes. 
