46 MAJOR C. BR. CONDER, D.O.L., RB.E., 
others belonging to Hittite chiefs, Agag among Amalekites, 
Goliath, Akish, Phicol, and others, among Philistines, do not 
appear to be Semitic words; but,—which is even more 
interesting,—there are many words in Hebrew (fifty or sixty, 
at least) which seem to be borrowed from the old Turanian 
languages, just as the Assyrian borrows from Akkadian, 
showing us probably a Turanian element in Palestine as well as 
in Chaldea. The sameis to be noticed in Pheenician, where the 
names of many of the gods which scholars have been unable 
to explain are clearly referable to the same Turanian origin.* 
Since then we have clear evidence of a Turanian population in 
Syria and in Asia Minor, we may apply these languages of the 
Turkic stock to the interpretation of the ancient hieroglyphic 
texts in those countries which are neither cuneiform nor 
Egyptian in character. These hieroglyphics have been found 
on five stones at Hamath, and at Aleppo, on monuments from 
various other parts of Asia Minor and Syria, on a bowl from 
Babylon, and on seals from various places. 
Comparative tables from these sources, which I have drawn 
up, show that this hieroglyphic system consisted of about 
120 characters, of which a certain number, about 50 in all, 
are very common and often repeated, and the rest more rare. 
It cannot therefore be an alphabet with which we have to 
deal; it must be asystem like other hieroglyphic systems, in 
which the pictures represent words or syllables. 
Now it is generally agreed among those who have studied 
the subject, that the syllabary of Western Asia, which was 
deciphered by George Smith, represents the later forms of 
the hieroglyphics with which we have to deal, and as this 
syllabary includes 54 sounds, and nearly 60 emblems, we 
should be able from it to recover sounds for half the emblems 
of the old, so-called, Hittite hieroglyphics. 
It appeared to me, in the first place, necessary to try 
whether these sounds could be applied to the languages which 
we have already discussed. Secondly, to analyse carefully 
the combinations of these sounds; and, thirdly, to compare 
the forms of the hieroglyphs with those in other systems, 
such as the oldest Chinese, the oldest cuneiform, and the 
Egyptian. This has been a work of much labour and of long 
time, but the result shows that it was worth research. As 
regards the sounds, taking them from the syllabary, we obtain 
the common grammatical forms of Turkic languages; li for 
the adjective, a for the participle, ek for the person, mek for 
* For details see my paper on the pre-Semitic element in Pheenicia, 
Archeological Review, April, 1888 
