ETRURIA CAPTA. 147 
first syllabaries, each character denoting the combined sound of a 
consonant and vowel. There is, of course, also a bare possibility 
that phonographs may be complex, representing words, as in the 
Egyptian, Assyrian, and Chinese, in which case they might receive 
the name of ideographs ; but in the case of the Etruscan characters 
this is hardly likely, as the hieroglyphic form has entirely dis- 
appeared from them. The problem, therefore, is to find the powers 
of that Turanian alphabet or syllabary, of which the Etruscan system 
of writing is one of the variant forms. An attempt to solve the 
problem necessitates a wide outlook, which shall embrace in com- 
parative study all ancient Turanian methods of speech notation. 
THE ANCIENT TURANIAN SYLLABARY. 
For several years I have given the greater part of my leisure time 
to a solution of the problem thus presented, being stimulated thereto 
by the discovery of the Hittite tablets engraved in hieroglyphic 
characters at Hamath and Carchemish. These Hittite hieroglyphics, 
representing human, animal and other figures, like the Egyptian, but 
less conventionally, I take to be the originals of the Turanian 
alphabet or syllabary. With the exception of my own translitera- 
tion and translation, which is, I now find, very imperfect, these 
inscriptions have not been read, and are, therefore, unavailable as 
materials for interpretation in themselves. But it has been shown 
by Professor Sayce and other students that the alphabetic characters 
found on Cyprian monuments bear a somewhat similar relation to the 
hieroglyphics of Syria to that which the hieratic bears to the Egyp- 
tian hieroglyphic.’ The phonetic values of many Cypriote characters 
The same is the case with the Corean and ancient Japanese. For the Corean alphabet and 
syllabary, see plate 1 of Atlas accompanying Klaproth’s Translation of the San Kokf Tsou 
Ran To Sets, Oriental Translation Fund’s Publications. 
6 A friendly critic suggests that my admission of great imperfections in the transliteration 
and translation of the Hittite inscriptions is not reassuring. Neither in that document nor 
elsewhere have I made any claim to infallibility ; nor, I trust, shall I ever fail to admit with 
becoming frankness the errors which are almost unavoidable in the pioneer work which has 
fallen tome. I do adhere firmly to my reading of the bilingual inscription of Tarkutimme, and 
of the names Shalmanezer, Sagara, Pisiris, Khintiel, Rezin, Hamath, Hittite, and many other 
words in the larger inscriptions. Some of the Hittite hieroglyphics I am still in doubt about. 
To others I find that I attached false phonetic values which I have since corrected. The 
majority of my identifications I have conflrmed by subsequent extensive comparisons with 
materials not at first accessible to me. 
7 In an article on the Hamathite inscriptions in the Trans. Socy Bib. Archezol, Vol. V., p. 31 
Professor Sayce says: ‘‘Some time ago I expressed the opinion in the Academy that this 
earlier system of writing was none other than the hieroglyphics of Hamath.’’ The earlier 
