288 Rev. Dr. Wat on the different Kinds of Cuneiform Writing 
But a comparison of the two specimens serves to throw a still more interesting 
light on their Egyptian portions, as, for instance, in the following particulars. 
In the first place, the second hieroglyph in the first cartouche is shown by its 
variant in the second cartouche, the divided sceptre, not to be invested, as has 
been hitherto supposed, with the power of sh, but merely with that of s. This 
result adds to the many proofs I have elsewhere advanced, of the phonetic use of 
hieroglyphs by the Egyptians having been derived solely from Greek writing ; 
for here, in the transcription of the Persian sh, there is employed a letter of 
merely s power, precisely in the same defective manner as a Grecian scribe would 
have been compelled to express its value by a sigma, if he had given separate 
signs for the cuneiform kh and sh, instead of substituting his «i for both com- 
bined. The Coptic alphabet, indeed, includes a letter of sk power, which is one 
of the circumstances that contribute to show it was not formed till after a commu- 
nication was opened between Egypt and Asia, by the reduction of that country 
under the dominion of the Persians; but the system of phonetic hieroglyphs 
having commenced while yet the Egyptians had intercourse with no alphabetic 
writers but Greeks,* was subsequently confined, through the force of habit, to 
the same powers that it had at first; in consequence of which, its extant remains 
still betray, and that, too, in several ways, its exclusively Grecian origin. 
In the second place, the circumstance of exactly the same collection of hiero- 
glyphs being exhibited in common in the lower part of both cartouches, naturally 
suggests the notion of its signifying the commén title of the Persian sovereigns, 
viz. ‘great king, king of kings,’ which is found so generally subjoined to the 
royal names in cuneiform legends. In accordance with this view of the bearing 
of the collection, we may observe that the sceptre, a symbol of ‘royalty,’ and 
* The policy observed by the native princes of Egypt, of excluding all foreigners from inter- 
course with their subjects, was first deviated from in favour of Greeks, and in the time of Psam- 
metichus; who, as we are informed by Herodotus (lib. i1. cap. 154), having ascended the throne 
by the aid of some Ionian and Carian soldiers that had been shipwrecked on the coast, gave them 
a settlement in the country, and had certain Egyptian children committed to their care, to be by 
them instructed in the Greek language, and, consequently, in the Greek mode of writing. This 
account of Herodotus is corroborated by Diodorus Siculus (lib. i. cap. 67), both as to the reign in 
which the intercourse with Greeks began, and as to the immediate consequence of that intercourse. 
But the latter historian makes a more direct reference to alphabetic writing, as he tells us of the 
Egyptian boys being instructed, not merely in the Greek language, but in Greek learning. 
