in the triple Inscriptions of the Persians, &c. 289 
thence of ‘king,’ occurs twice among its ingredients; while the intervening cha- 
racter, a bird with extended wings, is, like the spread eagle of European heraldry, 
a suitable emblem of ‘supremacy,’ or ‘dominion.’ But in the examination of 
part of the Rosetta inscription, in the first volume of my Work, I have shown, I 
think, beyond a doubt, that figures of the limbs of the human body, when idea- 
graphically used in this kind of writing, served to denote action. The hand, 
therefore, at the bottom of this collection, when combined with the bird, has an 
effect on its signification analogous to that which would be produced in alphabetic 
writing, by changing an abstract term into the form of a participial noun, or par- 
ticiple active ; so as, for example, in the present instance, to convert the meaning 
of ‘rule,’ into that of ‘ruler,’ or ‘ruling.’ It may be added, that the connexion 
of the symbols requires the second emblem for ¢ king’ to be understood in a plural 
sense ; precisely as, even up to the present day, in Chinese writing, it, in general, 
depends solely on the context of the passage in which an ideagram occurs, whether 
it be made to represent one or more individual persons or things. If this expla- 
nation be just, the Egyptian title, virtually agreeing with the Persian one in four 
of its elements, must equally do so in the remaining ingredient, the symbol at 
the top of the collection, which, in consequence, is found to tally with the group 
of the cuneiform title WuZuRK, signifying ‘great; and thus the literal mean- 
ing of the whole ideagraphic expression comes out, ‘ great king, ruler of kings.’ 
It is no objection to my analysis, that the plural sense of a noun is indicated in 
the Rosetta inscription by the repetition of its sign three times, or by connecting 
therewith three little straight lines or marks of units. The difference, in this 
respect, between the earlier and later modes of hieroglyphic designation, is merely 
the result of one of the improvements which were, in the course of little more than 
two centuries, effected in the style of the Egyptian scribe, by his acquaintance with 
Greek writing. Neither is it any objection to the virtually complete identity of 
the Persian and Egyptian titles here compared, that an expression for ‘king’ 
occurs three times in one of them, and only twice in the other: as three sceptres 
brought immediately together, in writing as yet destitute of connecting marks, 
would merely signify a plurality of kings; and the only inference that could be 
drawn from their assemblage in the two cartouches would be, that the Egyptian 
insculptors had arrived at a mode of distinguishing the plural number in their 
legends earlier than, in the actual state of the case, it appears they did. From 
VOL. XXI. 20 
