April a,, 1888] 



NATURE 



539 



may here be observed that there was at Aleppo a Hittite 

 inscription which unfortunately has been destroyed, and 

 which, though it had evidently suffered from the weather 

 and time, was in several respects of great interest. From 

 drawings which were made from it, especially by the 

 late George Smith, we are able, however, to form a good 

 estimate of its evidence with regard to the king-symbol. 

 It presented a figure — no doubt of the person celebrated 

 in the inscription — with a symbol similarly formed and 

 similarly marked to that in the Tarkutimme seal. 



The question here presents itself : In what order are 

 the characters outside the staff or spear to be taken ? 

 Now in the Hittite inscriptions the boiistrophcdon manner 

 of writing is observed. A line having been written from 

 left to right, in the next the direction is reversed, and the 

 writing goes back from right to left. This fact could not 

 have been known to a forger in i860, yet it is in accord- 

 ance with this principle that our inscription is engraved. 

 Having therefore read from top to bottom, we must go 

 back, and read from the bottom towards the top. 

 Accordingly we shall have to take next after the tall cone 

 denoting "king" the smaller double cone. Prof. Sayce 

 (apparently under the influence of Dr. Mordtmann's idea 

 that the " deux petits obelisques reunis " owe their origin 

 to the remarkable conformation of a certain district of 

 Asia Minor) regards the double cone as denoting 

 " country." But Dr. Mordtraann grouped these and the 

 taller cone together, regarding all as of similar import. 

 And, so far as their being of similar import is concerned, 

 the conclusion seems to me inevitable. If, however, the 



Fig. E. — " Ki.ng "-bymbol on Aleppo inscription. 



taller cone denotes " king," the smaller cones, being of 

 similar import, must denote " men," The tallness of the 

 single cone is in accordance with the well-known ancient 

 practice of denoting the greatness of a king by the 

 greatly increased size of the figure representing him. It 

 is true that, in accordance with Assyrian custom, the 

 cuneiform legend gives "country." But whether a 

 monarch is called king of a country or of the people 

 inhabiting that country depends on local usage. " Queen 

 of Great Britain " and " King of the French" are familiar 

 contiguous examples in recent times. We may regard, 

 then, the double cone as denoting "people," plurality 

 being expressed by doubling the cone, and intensified 

 probably by the numerous transverse marks. ' 



The symbol next above the double cone is, I believe, 

 unique, no other example being found, so far as I am 

 aware, on any of the inscriptions. To me it seems clear 

 that this symbol is an ideograph of the country Zume. 

 There are, it will be seen, on the lower side of the lower 

 limb three projections, which may be reasonably regarded 

 as representing mountains. The number three probably 

 denotes a good many mountains. We may take it that 

 Zume lay along the banks of a river or estuary with 

 mountains on one side. A remarkable analogy is pre- 

 sented by one of the monuments in the British Museum 

 from Jerablus. We have here again the oval ideograph 

 of "city," 2 already mentioned in connection with the 



' I have no hesitation in referring these cones to a phallic origin. This in 

 early times would be regarded as a very natural way of representing 

 "man"; and, like other designations of men, cones might easily come to 

 denote both sexes, and a people generally. 



^ The ideogr.iph is slightly broken on the monument. 



Boghaz-Keui bas-reliefs. Here again, as on the Tarku- 

 timme seal, we have the three mountains, occurring in this 

 case on both sides. The intention is, to indicate a city 

 located in, or at the head of, a valley lying between moun- 

 tains. ^ The name of the city is in all probability denoted 

 by the other characters, to the reader's left, the doubled 

 curve (the doubling denoting plurality) and what is 

 probably intended for a treev beneath.^ Thi s twofold 

 indication of the name, for the sake of clearness, is entirely 

 in accordance with the usage of both the Assyrian and 

 Egyptian monuments. And similar evidence might be 

 adduced from more remote sources. 



Thus a twofold indication of the name Zume in the 

 Hittite inscription on the seal must be regarded as alto- 

 gether probable ; and it seems to me beyond reasonable 

 doubt that the last characters, the four nearly vertical 

 strokes, with one horizontal, express the name Zume 

 phonetically. Dr. Mordtmann observed, with reference 

 to these strokes, that it would be difficult to give them a 

 phonetic value without regarding them as numerals, but 

 that so to regard them would be fruitless in result. In 

 this last remark he was, I think, in error. They are, in 

 my judgment, numerals, though here used, not with refer- 

 ence to their numerical value, but merely as phonetic signs ; 

 and to show that they are to be so taken, the engraver has 

 placed them at an angle, or, so to speak, tilted them up. 

 The last character, the two vertical strokes with one 

 horizontal, gives precisely the Assyrian symbol for 100, but 

 written after the archaic manner, before the wedge-writing 

 was introduced. Me, the Assyrian for " a hundred," is, 

 moreover, precisely the value that we require here. Zu 

 or su will then be the name for 2, the first character. 



Fig. F. — Symbols from Jerablus monument in the British Museum. 



There is no great difficulty in connecting this with the 

 Assyrian sanu 2, or sjinnu i, supposing that the n was 

 slurred over in pronunciation and eventually dropped. And 

 it must be remembered that, if those who made this seal 

 spoke a Semitic dialect, there is no reason to suppose that 

 this dialect was absolutely identical with any of the 

 Semitic dialects otherwise known to us.^ 



It will be thus, I think, seen that there is a reasonable 

 correspondence between this Hittite inscription and the 

 cuneiform inscription round the circumference of the seal. 

 It should be observed, too, that both with regard to the 

 king and the country the phonetic designation is supple- 

 mentary — in the first case to the portrait of the king, and 

 in the second to the ideograph of the country. The 

 inscription is mainly ideographic. It is important that 

 this fact should be kept in view in the decipherment of 

 other inscriptions. 



With regard to the characters behind the king, or on 

 his right side, it should be observed not only that the 

 engraver had on this side a smaller space at his disposal, 

 but also that he probably thought it necessary or desirable 

 to place close to the figure the tall cone denoting " king." 



' Dr. E. B. Tylor observes, " Map-making is a branch of picture- 

 writing with which the savage is quite familiar, and he is often more skilful 

 in it than the majority of civilized men " (" Early History of Mankind," p. 

 89). But of course the authors of these monuments were by no means 

 savages. 



^ Having regard to the position rf Jerablus, where the monument was 

 found, and to some other facts in relation thereto, I read the name con- 

 jecturally Bamoth-elnh — that is, " Bamoth of the Terebinth." 



3 The two strokes similarly til;ed up, and repeated occur on the monument 

 iti the British Museum mentioned just above (see Fig. F). W.th the same 

 value as on the seal we should have Su sri, or Zu-:u. a reading by no means 

 improbable ; but I cannot in thisplacedijcufs the matter further. Cf. Zuzim, 

 Gen. x.v. 5, and Zamzimmim, Deut. ii. 20. 



