298 Rev. Dr. Watt on the different Kinds of Cuneiform Writing 
cuneiform character in Babylon during the days of her splendour, it may, I 
submit, be fairly inferred that their remains exhibit what was the national writing 
of the inhabitants, as long as buildings continued to be erected there, or down 
to the time of the capture of the town by Cyrus, after which the place was con- 
stantly on the decline, till it became a total ruin. But the national tongue of 
the same people, as spoken by them at the period just specified, is also preserved 
to us in several chapters of the book of Daniel and other portions of the original 
Scriptures of the Old Testament. We should, therefore, be in possession of the 
very language of the Babylonian inscriptions, if their lines consisted of groups 
immediately expressive of words ; and whenever a sufficient quantity unmutilated 
is supplied of any species of alphabetic writing in a known tongue, it can always 
be deciphered and translated. This, however, remains still unaccomplished with 
regard to the Babylonian inscriptions, though such numbers of them have been 
found of considerable length, with the whole, or a great part of each, in a perfect 
state ; nor has there been as yet elicited from any of them a connected sentence of 
even the simplest and briefest form. But the case is yet stronger with respect to 
the legends of the Persians in the third kind of cuneiform writing, which are in a 
cognate character, and, supposing them phonetically significant, would be in the 
same language, as is implied by the epithet, ‘ Babylonian,’ which is extended to 
them. At all events, the purport of each of these is, known through the aid 
of the equivalent legend in the first kind of cuneiform writing; and if the fore- 
going supposition was to hold with regard to them, not only would they too 
be in a known language, the Chaldee, but also their groups representing names 
(ascertained by the same aid of corresponding legends) would not be mere cha- 
racteristic descriptions indirectly suggesting those names, but would directly 
express their sounds; and, consequently, the analysis of those groups would at 
once determine the powers of several of the elements of the system. Consider- 
ing, then, the great advantages that would be thus afforded to an investigator of 
the legends in question, and the length of time—nearly half a century—which 
has elapsed since they were first subjected to examination, as well as the mdustry, 
the ingenuity, and the skill that have been expended on the research, surely 
it must have been long since brought to a successful issue, if the writing em- 
ployed in those legends had really been alphabetic. But, notwithstanding all 
this, there has not as yet been published, as far as I can learn, a single sentence 
