The Rev. Edward Hincks on a Tablet in the British Museum. 33 



tu. It had, however, other common values, probably derived from other objects, 

 which the rhombus conventionally represented. 



In dates, where a day of the month was to be expressed, it is habitually 

 used alone to express the dative t%imi ; but, except in dates, the word is regu- 

 larly written at full length, as in the thirty-fourth line of Bellino's cylinder, 

 where we have jr^ ^ • ^J <^^ . ^ "Bf «' -natu. mi su . wa, " in that day." 



2. The second and third characters compose the word which signifies 

 "sixth." The former is the ideographic representative of "six," like the 

 Eoman VI.; and the latter is a conventional sign, denoting that the other 

 should be read as an ordinal, and not a cardinal number. The first three cha- 

 racters may be considered as corresponding to "D. VI.*"" for "Die sexto." 



I have no doubt that this word ought to be read tsidi ; but as this is an 

 inference, obtained by a rather complicated process, I place this word between 

 brackets, instead of between parentheses, as I do when the word expressing the 

 monogram has actually been found written with phonetic characters. I pro- 

 • ceed to explain the analogy by which I have obtained this word ; and I will 

 at the same time, and in connexion with this, state what I know of the other 

 numerals below " ten." 



The characters ^^-^ <y^ occur on Colonel Taylor's cylinder, for the ordinal 

 " third," in connexion with " year." I have never seen this cylinder but for 

 a moment or two, when I was not allowed to examine it. I make this state- 

 ment on the authority of Colonel Rawlinson, in the portion of the analysis of 

 the Behistun Inscription which he published in 1851 (see p. Ixxii.) In ano- 

 ther part of the same publication (p. 15), he says that the cylinder has 

 ^■*->. X'\ ; but I believe the former statement is correct. Colonel Rawlinson at 

 that time considered this to be a compound character ; in my paper of Novem- 

 ber, 1852, I read the first word shal.shi; and I produced the numeral for 

 "four," ^y^^iy^y v^y <^^>^ which I read ar.ba.ah ("Transactions of the 

 Royal Irish Academy," vol. xxii. p. 358). 



In March, 1854, I found on a tablet in the British Museum four numerals, 

 viz., y;^,- ^-*-yy .^.y-. shal . ish . ti, >-^^^ ^y yj »— <y-< ri .b'a.d. ti, ]J1J< .-.^y ^^"^ ^J^^ 

 hha . aUn . ish . ti, and ^^^ •^Tf-^T »— 'I"^ ^^ ■ *"* • '* ' which I published in the " Lite- 

 rary Gazette," in the following month. I then explained these words as 

 numeral adverbs, "thirdly," "fourthly," "fifthly," and "tenthly." On my return 



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