to the Ethnological Society of London. 343 



and have passed the Oxus and Jaxartes, long since the time 

 of the Medes, and even subsequently to the reign of the last 

 Sassanian Yezdejird. It must be allowed that this conclu- 

 sion is against all antecedent probability, and that if w^e were 

 to judge from all that ancient historians have left us, we 

 should conclude the Medes and Persians to have been only 

 branches of one people. 



The thii'd kind of cuneiform inscriptions is more interest- 

 ing than either of the former, inasmuch as it promises to 

 lead our researches to periods of much greater antiquity. 

 This is called by Major Rawlinson the Babylonian writing. 

 He says, " Tlie Babylonian is unquestionably the most ancient 

 of the three great classes of cuneiform writing. It is well 

 known that legends in this character are stamped upon the 

 bricks which are excavated from the foundations of all the 

 buildings in Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Chaldfea." " It 

 is, therefore, hardly extravagant,'' as Major Rawlinson ob- 

 serves, " to assign its invention to the primitive race which 

 settled in the plains of Shinar." The inscriptions which are 

 considered as belonging to this third kind of cuneiform writ- 

 ing display greater variation in the forms and groupings of 

 the letters than what are found in the other two kinds. 

 There are four varieties, which are distinguished as follow : 

 First, the characters called the primitive Babylonian are dis- 

 covered in the ruins of Babylon, at Erek, Accad, and Calneh. 

 The characters found in the third column of the Behistun and 

 other trilinguar inscriptions in Persia, differ, in some parti- 

 culars, from these old Babylonian letters, and they are sup- 

 posed, by Major Rawlinson and others, to be a slight modi- 

 fication of the most ancient form, adapted to the custom of 

 later times, when the Babylonians were subjects of the Per- 

 sian empire. These last characters are termed the Acha3- 

 menian-Babylonian, as having been used under the Achse- 

 menide kings, or the successors of Cyrus. The third variety 

 of the third kind of cuneiform letters are the Assyrian. This 

 is the form used in the inscriptions found lately at Khorsa- 

 bad, Nimroud, and Nineveh, in the ancient Assyria. The last 

 variety is that termed, by Major Rawlinson, Elymscan. It has 

 been traced at Mai-Amir in the ancient Elymais. 



