THE 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



ANNALS OF PHILOSOPHY. 



[NEW SERIES.] 



MAY 1829. 



XLVIII. On the ancient Inscriptions of Per sepolis. By the 

 Rev. John Kenrick, M.A.* 



rWith a Plate.] 

 nPHE brilliant success which has attended the researches of 

 -'- Champollion and Young into the writing of the ancient 

 Egyptians, has drawn the attention of all who take an interest 

 in historical investigations, and will probably change in a 

 few years our whole system of Egyptian antiquities. It is the 

 object of the present paper to give some account of the at- 

 tempts which have been made to decipher another species of 

 ancient writing — that which is found upon the remains of 

 Persepolis, and upon other monuments within the limits of the 

 empire possessed by the successors of Cyrus. In offering this 

 account to the Society, I profess nothing more, than to trace 

 the discoveries of some continental writers, whose works I have 

 reason to believe are almost wholly unknown in this country. 



The character in question is formed from a very simple 

 element (y ), a stroke which, when elaborately made, resembles 

 the head of an arrow ; when less carefully cut or impressed, a 

 wedge or a nail ; and hence the inscriptions have been called 

 arro'iKheaded, nailheaded or cuneiform. Those of Persepolis, 

 being cut in marble, are arrowheaded, those of the Babylonian 

 bricks are chiefly nailheaded t; but the difl'erence appears not 

 to be essential, as many of the latter are formed in the same 

 way as the Persepolitan characters. It has been conjectured 

 that the use of the arrow for purposes of divination (Ezekiel 

 xxi. 21.) may have given rise to its employment as the ele- 

 ment of the Assyrian and Persian characters. Two of these 

 strokes are joined together by the broad end, forming a cha- 



• Itead bc'fDre the Yorkshire Pliilosophical Society ; and communicated 

 hy the Author. f See Plate III. 



N. S. Vol. 5. No. 9.9. May 1829. 2 T meter 



