328 Rev. John Kenrick on the 



it is diflficult to say what the words are. Champollion has 

 found the names of Cambyses, (Prras, p. 231, 2nd edition) 

 Darius, .and Artaxerxes, hieroglyphically written on various 

 Egyptian monuments, but not accompanied, as the name of 

 Xerxes before mentioned, by a Persian inscription. He has 

 also found the name of Ramses, the Sesostris of Greek and 

 Latin writers, written hieroglyphically and in PersepoHtan 

 characters, on a monument in Syria, near the ancient Berytus. 

 {Precis, p. 272.) It will be remembered that the coast of 

 Syria is one of the places in which Herodotus (ii. 106) de- 

 clares that he had seen the monuments of this king, with an 

 inscription commemorating the facility with which he had tri- 

 umphed over the unwarlike inhabitants. I regret that Cham- 

 pollion has mentioned this very curious relic so briefly and 

 incidentally; if he is right in placing Ramses in the fifteenth 

 century before the Christian £era, how far back must we carry 

 the use of the cuneiform character ! 



It was before observed that the inscriptions at Persepolis and 

 Murghab, and on the alabaster vase of the king of France's li- 

 brary, are triple. Those of the second class have been conjec- 

 tured to be in the Median language, those of the third in some 

 Aramaean dialect ; but this is mere hypothesis. Whether from 

 the language in which they are written being less full of vowels 

 than the Zendic, or from the vowels being suppressed, or from 

 the occasional use of monograms, they occupy less space than 

 those of the first class. We see in them too, especially in the 

 third class, more frequent examples of combination of the 

 strokes, preparing the way to the Babylonian inscriptions and 

 that of Tak-kesra, in which it is very common. 



I am far from thinking that the whole of Grotefend's or St. 

 Martin's translation of the inscriptions of the first class rests 

 upon an equally solid foundation ; but that they are alphabeti- 

 cal, that they contain the names of Xerxes and Darius with 

 the title king in Zendic, seems to me to be established by very 

 sufficient evidence : and even from this limited discovery very 

 interesting consequences flow, to which I will briefly advert. 



Those who have speculated on the origin of alphabetical wri- 

 ting have generally felt themselves at a loss to conceive, how 

 jiien were led to the thought of making a visible sign the ex- 

 ponent of an audible impression, and thus associating two 

 senses whose sphere and mode of operation are so diflPerent. 

 The discoveries of Champollion seemed to facilitate the in- 

 vention of an alphabet, by showing that the transition from 

 pictural and symbolical to phonetic writing was so gradual, as 

 not to require any subtlety of analysis or depth of reflection on 

 the operations of mind, which it would be unreasonable to at- 

 tribute 



