of the Letters of the Hieroglyphic Alphabet. 155 
I will now briefly state my views as to the origin of this practice, and the 
reason why it continued to prevail. 
As to the first point, I conceive that every phonoglyph originally in use 
represented a syllable, under which name I would here include a combination of 
two syllables, as well as a single vowel. 
That at a period more remote than the date of the oldest monument in exis- 
tence, a selection was made of certain characters, which should henceforth repre- 
sent the initial sounds in the syllables that they represented. 
That in process of time, but still before the date of the earliest monuments 
in existence, the practice was introduced of completing the characters which 
remained syllabic, by the addition of the characters that denoted letters ; the 
object of this completion being to assist the memory, which could not easily 
retain, without some assistance of this sort, the powers of so many phonoglyphs. 
That various means of completing the syllables were used; custom being 
guided by the frequency with which the phonoglyph to be completed occurred, 
and by the convenience of arranging the characters in groups. Some were 
completed without using the syllabic sign as a letter; and, in that case, first, all 
the characters might precede it, as in MeT, figs. 52, 55; or, secondly, all might 
follow it, as in MA, “truth,” or “a cubit,” fig. 64 ; or, thirdly, some might pre- 
cede and some follow it, as in AMaKH, “to bless or favour,” fig. 66. Other 
words were completed by using the syllabic sign, fourthly, as the first letter, as in 
MeN, fig. 8; or, fifthly, as the last letter, as in ToM, fig. 67. In all these 
instances, except the last, the syllabic sign is sometimes used alone, without any 
completion. Sometimes a syllabic sign is completed in more ways than one, as fig. 
68, which represents the syllable Hos, is sometimes completed in the fourth way, 
as in fig. 69, and sometimes in the third, as in fig. 70. It was a decided error of 
Champollion to suppose that the spindle, in this last word, represented the vowel ; 
it represents the whole syllable. Yom, again, fig. 67, is sometimes completed in the 
third manner, as in fig.71. A peculiar kind of vedture represents the syllable NeH. 
It admits of being completed either in the fourth way, as in fig. 72, by placing an 
H after it, which is the most convenient, and therefore the commonest way; or 
in the fifth way, by placing an N before it, as in fig. 73, which represents the 
name TiMNaH, a town in Palestine, 752m, Pap. pl. 56, 1. 3; or in the third 
way, as in fig. 74, where it is inserted between the N, which concludes one word, 
U 2 
