RECENT DISCOVERIES IN THE REALM OP ASSYRIOLOGY, ETC. 177 



is compared with the Turkish word (I do not know Turkish except 

 from books) which is, I believe, " Tengri." 



I thank those who have spoken for their very appreciative 

 remarks, and I am very pleased that I have succeeded in 

 presenting something which may be regarded as of interest. 

 (Applause.) 



The meeting v>as then adjourned. 



REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING PAPER. 



FROM MAJOR C. R. CONDER, R.E., D.C.L., &c. 



Mr. Pinches has contributed a most valuable and interesting 

 Paper to the Institute, and no one in England is better fitted to 

 write on the subject. It is satisfactory to see that he attributes 

 a date about 2500 B.C. to the inscriptions, representing the 

 civilisation of Babylonia about the time of Abraham or rather 

 earlier ; for some scholars have spoken of these statues as dating 

 about 4000 B.C., for which date there is no sound reason, while the 

 advance in the character of the writing from its first hieroglyphic 

 state to the conventional forms used, is far more probably to be 

 assigned to the date which Mr. Pinches adopts. 



De Sarzec's work has been in my possession for the last two 

 years, and represents one of the most important of recent additions 

 to knowledge of Cuneiform writing, and of early Asiatic history. 

 The texts are not only in Akkadian, but in a character so archaic 

 and so nearly approaching the original hieroglyphic forms of the 

 emblems, as to make it clear that these were originally rude 

 sketches of natural objects. None who are unfamiliar with the 

 history of this character would, at first sight, suppose the 

 signs to be the same which in a much modified form were used by 

 the Assyrians 800 years later, but the labours of Amiaud and 

 Mechineau have shown the gradual changes which went on, and 

 have served to connect the oldest and latest forms in a satisfactory 

 manner. It is now clearly shown that the emblems, which at Tell 

 Loh stand upright, while the syllables of the words (as in Hittite) 

 are placed in vertical columns, and the words in the line divided 

 off by vertical divisions, were afterwards turned on their sides, 

 and are so used in the Assyrian and later Babylonian writing. 



