Dr. Grorrrenp on Inscriptions found in Lycia and Phrygia. 323 
Southern coasts of Asia Minor; in support of which opinion, M. Sarnr- 
Martin adduces divers medals with characters resembling the Pheenician, 
and also two verses of Quintus Smyrnmus,* in which the name of the 
Phenicians is made to extend as far as the Lycian mountain Massikytes. 
It would however be as difficult to explain from the Aramean all the names 
which we find in the inscriptions on the Caramanian shores, such as Dae, 
Epiuasis, Kidamuasis, Kualis, Kuas, Las, Nineis, Obranguis, Obrangeris, 
as the names and words of the Lycian inscriptions themselves, Pheenician, 
as well as Greek words, may have become mixed with the barbarous 
elements of the Lycian language ; but the latter belonged (as is to be 
inferred from the names of places in assus, essus, or issus) to the widely 
extended Phrygian tribes, and so closely resembled the Medo-Persian 
language, that ALEXANDER, according to Arrtan,t employed as an inter- 
preter in Bactria and Sogdiana, a Lycian named Puarnucuos, which very 
name exhibits some similarity with the Persian Puarnakes. Even the 
outward form of the Lycian tombs, together with the fire-worship prevailing 
in Lycia,t has reference to Persian taste, and Persian ideas of religion. 
We do not, however, hereby mean to contend, that a knowledge of one of 
the languages mentioned will be sufficient to explain the Lycian inscriptions ; 
we should rather seek to illustrate them from their own contents. 
As by a comparison of the different inscriptions we have defined the 
probable signification of the Separate words, so must we also proceed to 
ascertain the import of each particular character. Let us then re-commence 
with the name of Srparros at the fifth space of the first inscription. The 
fourth character in this name, and the only one not corresponding to any 
Greek character, seems to have had the value of an a; which supposition 
is borne out by the fact that in the Carian inscription, at the beginning of 
the first word, and in the middle of the third, an a is actually written 
instead of it. But as other signs also in the Lycian alphabet seem to have 
expressed the sound of a (insomuch that M. Samr-Martin believes he has 
found no less than five different characters for a), while other vowels exist 
only in a single form, it becomes doubtful whether the Greek translation can 
justify us in receiving the unknown character as a secondary form of the a; 
for, as the Lycian writing uses an e instead of an #, so that the é,. which 
always occurs after one, and mostly between two vowels, seems to have the 
* Paralipom. Hom. viii. 106, et seg. LV Se 
t See Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie, IT. page 136, et seq. 
