1890-91.] SIBERIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 263 



Studies have revived in the hands of Messrs. PopofF, Adrianofif, Potanin, 

 and other explorers, through the museum of Minousinsk founded in 1874 

 by Martianoff; through the Russian Archaeological Commission, and 

 Geographical Society; and, far from least, through the Archaeological 

 Society of Finland, and its indefatigable Director, Mr. Aspelin, whose 

 published work brings the story of Siberian explorations almost to date. 



The Yeniseian, or more generically, the Siberian, inscriptions are, with 

 one obscure exception, that on a fragment of a bronze plate supposed to 

 have been a Chinese mirror, engraved upon stones and rocks, the latter 

 almost always overhanging rivers or streams*. They are written or un- 

 written, the first consisting of regular" lines of apparently alphabetic 

 characters, the second being pictographs differing little from those 

 depicted in many parts of the American continent. To the pictorial 

 class, which has no hieroglyphic connection whatsoever, the rock inscrip- 

 tions chiefly belong; but innumerable stones scattered over the once 

 habitable area of Siberia contain representations rudely executed of 

 men and animals, of hunting and pastoral scenes. Acts of individual 

 warfare are sometimes portrayed, and illustrations of copper cauldrons 

 with human figures dancing round them are supposed to connect with 

 northern magic^. A finer kind of sculpture, sometimes in intaglio, but 

 oftener in bold relief approaching the statuesque, appears generally in 

 connection with the written character. When it represents the human 

 features, it was evidently intended as a portrait of the occupant of the 

 grave mound over which the stone that bears it was originally reared. 

 Some sepulchral stones are void of ornament ; on others there are rein- 

 deer and other animal effigies; and on others the portrayed face is so 

 barely and grotesquely human that it may be regarded as an object of 

 idolatrous worship. The number of stones engraved with written char- 

 acters, accompanied or unaccompanied with other ornamentation, is prob- 

 ably but little over forty, of which Mr. Aspelin figures thirty-two. It 

 does not necessarily follow that all of these, whether found in a standing 

 position or lying flat upon the surface of the ground, are sepulchral in 

 character. Some contain Buddhist emblems, and, were I to anticipate the 

 results of personal decipherment, it would appear that several of them are 

 inscribed with proclamations relating to the worship of Gotama, which 

 were probablj^ engraved on portions of religious buildings that have 

 fallen to decay. 



The Yenisei country is one of thick strewn mounds, mounds by no 

 means so ambitious in size and variation of outline as many of those 

 which are scattered over the Ohio and Mississippi valleys; but, in so far 

 as they are sepulchral, of the same nature, the chambered tumulus of 



