538 



NATURE 



[April s, 1888 



Mordtmann seems to have been first inclined to give 

 Zotisotis, but, as no other authority for such a name 

 could be found, he changed this conjecturally for Tarsus. 

 The Hittite characters Dr. Mordtmann regarded as, 

 on the whole, emblems of the country, with its produc- 

 tions, over which the king ruled, and not as forming 

 inscriptions, or an inscription. He made, however, some 

 important observations with regard to the relation of 

 these characters, as well as the figure and equipment of 

 the king, with what was to be seen on other monuments. 

 The boots with turned-up toes were found also at Boghaz- 

 Keui, Eyuk, and Eregli, in Cappadocia (" Les Monuments 



d'Uyuk, de Bogaz-keuy, et d'Eregli, en Cappodoce"), as 

 well as on the monument at Karabel, near Smyrna. The 

 dagger was to be seen at Boghaz-Keui, and the spear at 

 Karabel. The figure at Karabel, also, was without a 

 beard, like that on the seal. At KaraJoel, too, were the 

 same characters found between the head and the spear.^ 

 The accoutrements of the king were hke those of the 

 Cilician soldiers in the army of Xerxes, as described by 

 Herodotus (lib. vii. ch. 91). 



About ten or eleven years later, Dr. Mordtmann returned 

 to the seal, and discussed it in the Journal of the German 

 Oriental Society {Zeitschr. d. deutsch. morgenldnd. 

 Gesellsch., vol. xxvi. p. 625). He then gave, as the 

 name of the king, " Tarkudimme," and, though regarding 

 the name of the place, " Tarsun," as tolerably well ascer- 

 tained ("ziemlich gesichert"), yet he would not make, 

 he says, any strong opposition if it should be preferred 

 to substitute zu for the tar, forming the first syllable of 

 this name. With regard to the Hittite characters, this 

 article does not mark any very conspicuous advance, 

 except that the animals' heads, which Dr. Mordtmann 

 had previously regarded as the heads of horses, he 

 now more accurately described as the heads of goats 

 "Ziegenkopfe"). 



Though Dr. Mordtmann anticipated Prof Sayce, not 

 only in perceiving a relation between monuments (now 

 recognized as Hittite) in different places in Asia Minor, 

 but even in recognizing that certain characters on the 

 seal were the same, or of the same kind, with those 

 found on the Karabel monument, yet he did not perceive 

 that these characters formed a Hamathite or Hittite in- 

 scription. It would have been scarcely possible for him 

 to do this at the time ; and this fact furnishes, in accord- 

 ance with what has been said, one of the strongest 

 arguments for the genuineness of the inscriptions on tl;ie 

 seal. It was reserved for Prof. Sayce to detect that the 

 seal presented a true bilingual, Assyrian and Hittite 

 {Academy, August 21, 1880). 



Although, as already stated, the Assyrian characters 

 have peculiarities wliich distinguish them from any type 

 of cuneiform writing otherwise known, nevertheless, 

 with the exception of one important character, there 

 is a tolerable agreement as to the way in which the 

 Assyrian inscription is to be transcribed and read. If 

 we begin with the first character after the vacant space 

 over the king's head, this inscription, it seems to me, 

 may be read thus : — 



-i?ie-e I Tar-ku-u-tim-jne sar mat Zii- 



But if we begin, as we certainly ought to do, with the 

 vertical wedge standing before the king's name, and 

 denoting that the name of a man follows — represented 

 here by a vertical black line — we have : 



I Tar-kti-u-tiui-me sar m it Zti-7ne-e. 

 " Tarkutimme king of the country of Zume." 



The precise pronunciation of the second dental in the 

 royal name it is impossible to determine with certainty. 



' "Les memes caracteres verticaux entre la tete et la lance que nous voyons 

 figures sur le sceau pres de la main qui tisnt la lance et de I'autre cote pres 

 du grand ob^lisque." If anything more was intended ihaxi characters of the 

 same kind, there seems to be a mistake. 



Some might prefer to read "Tarkudimme." But this is 

 not of very much consequence. The difficulty to which 

 I have adverted relates to the first character in the name 

 of the country — the character immediately before the 

 vacant space o^'er the king's head. Prof Sayce reads 

 this as er, and gives as the name of the country Er-me-e, 

 " Erme." To me the probability has seemed that the 

 character should be read su or zu, the alternative reading 

 which had been suggested by Dr. Mordtmann.^ Cer- 

 tainly, with the reading su or zu, a symmetrical rendering 

 of the Hittite inscription can be given, but with er this 

 seems scarcely possible. 



On comparing the spaces on the one and the other 

 side of the figure of the king — for certainly this figure 

 must be intended as a portrait of King Tarkutimme — it 

 will be seen that the characters are repeated, though ap- 

 parently with some variations in size and in the order of 

 sequence. But these variations may be accounted for, if 

 the exigencies of the space at the engraver's disposal are 

 considered. On the left side of the king there is the 

 greater space, and a division is effected by the king's 

 arm and staff or spear. Consequently, in decipherment, 

 the order observed on this side would seem to furnish the 

 more satisfactory guidance. We may reasonably begin 

 at the top, with the two characters above the king's arm ; 

 and these, it can scarcely be doubtful, represent the royal 

 name Tarkutimme, inclosed and shut off as they are from 

 the rest. How the name is to be divided between the 

 two characters may seem not quite clear. Does the 

 upper one denote Tarku and the lower tiiniiie, or should 

 we divide Tar-kutimme ? There are grounds on which 

 the latter view seems the more probable. The Hittite 

 hieroglyphics may possibly have been used by non- 

 Semitic peoples, but at present the balance of evidence 

 seems to be in favour of a Semitism more or less pure. 

 On the Semitic hypothesis, and with the unequal division 

 last given, both elements of the name admit of tolerably 

 easy explanation. The first character seems certainly to 

 be the head of a goat. There is little difficulty, in 

 accordance with well-known vocal changes, including the 

 substitution in Aramaic of / for s, in understanding how 

 tar may represent the Hebrew sear, sdir ;- and the 

 second character likewise may be reasonably explained.* 

 Beneath the arm is a tall cone which must certainly 

 represent " king." This may be argued from the cha- 

 racter being placed close to the king on both sides, as 

 well as from its position on his left side immediately 

 under the characters representing the royal name. It 



' This conclusion was arrived at when, in i8So, my attention was first 

 directed to the seal ; and I then consulted three well-known Assyriol agists. 

 One of these was Dr. Strassmaier, who still adheres to the opinion then ex- 

 pressed. The very large number of texts which he has examined in the 

 interval, while preparing his laborious and comprehensive contributions to 

 Delitzsch and Haupt's Assyriological Libraiy, gives his opinion ihe greater 

 weight. He bases h's opinion on the convergence of the two smaller wedges 

 towards the larger horizontal wedge : strict parallelism would have been 

 required to give the value er. Dr. Haupt, now Professor of Semitic 

 Languages at the Johns Hopkins University, gave, if I recollect rightly, 

 the value sii rather than zii. Mr. S. A. Smith, who is editing and translating 

 the Assurbanipal texts, also gives his opinion in favour oi su. 



- We ought also to remember in this connection that Tarsus was the chief 

 city of Cilicia. According to the oldest authority which we have for the 

 name (the black obelisk of Shalmaneser), the city was called Tar-si. That 

 this city should be called after the goat can scarcely seem unlikely, if we re- 

 collect how famous Cilicia was for its goats with thick and long hair, out of 

 which Cilician cloth was made- a cloth of which, according to sjme, St. 

 Paul was a weaver. 



3 In his contribution to the " Miinzstudien," Dr. Mordtmann spoke of this 

 character a.i " un objet difficile a reconnaitre, mais qui ressemble 2iW puden- 

 dum mtdiebre." And afterwards, in the Z.D.M.G., he used similar lan- 

 guage : "'ein schwer zu bestimmendes Symbol, vermuthlich ein pudendum 

 muliebre." Supposing this to be the object intended, there is no difficulty 

 in understanding its bearing in a Semitic d.alect the name kutimvie. First, 

 there is the Assyrian katamUy with the Arabic kaiaina, "to conceal," con- 

 nected with which the word would have a sense nearly equivalent to puden- 

 dum. But, having regard to what has been said on tar, it may seem that 

 we ought to look t3 the Aramaean; and here we have ket/tam, " signavit." 

 with a derivative, '' /tz/Mt'/wa," nearly identical in form with kutimme. In 

 Gal. vi. 17 (Pesh.), kuthcma is used in the plural of the (myixaTa, 

 which the apostle says he bore in his body. The transition from this sense 

 is not difficult. Dr. Mordtmann's is the only probable explanation of the 

 symbol. Special and local causes may account for its forming part even af 

 a king's name. 



