EELIGIONS AND CIVILIZATION. 



163 



before the date of this inscription or no, it is certain that at the time 

 they received it the Semitic alphabet was complete, consisting of twenty- 

 two letters. Of these, twenty-one are found on this inscription, and 

 the other certainly occurred several times on the monument. The 

 oldest Greek alphabet corresponds very closely to that on the monu- 

 ment. And whether the Greeks accepted at first all the letters they 

 afterward used or no, it is certain that all their alphabet came ulti- 

 mately from this, and that it was all at their disposal at the time they 

 received any of it."^" Professor Rawlinson, in a note on the 58th 

 chapter of the 5th book of Herodotus, in which the Greek alphabet is 

 traced to a Phoenician source, says : " This is strong evidence to the 

 fact that European Greece got its alphabet direct from the Phoenicians. 

 Otherwise there is so great a similarity between the various alphabets 

 of Western Asia and Southern Europe (the Lycian, Phrygian, Etrus- 

 can, Umbrian, &c.,) that it would be difficult to prove more than their 

 common origin from a single type, which might be one anterior to the 

 Phoenician." Eunic and Etruscan characters, we are told, have been 

 found in Central Arabia, supposed to be the home of the old Cushite 

 race that included the Phoenician. ^^ The Gauls had letters something 

 like the early Greek letters of Cadmus.** And even the Touariks of the 

 Sahara, according to M. Boissonnet, have an alphabet almost identical 

 with that of ancient Phoenicia.*^ The following table of Gesenius 

 must, I believe, shew some nearer relationship between the peoples 

 who wrote the characters he has arranged in genealogical order than 

 has been generally admitted : — 



The First Phoenician. 



Ancient 

 Greek. 



Etruscan. 

 Umbrian. 

 Oscan. 



Samnite. 

 Celtiberian. 



Eoiuau. 



I I 



Ancient Aramsean 



Persian, on Egyptian monuments. 



[- 



Ancient 

 Hebrew. 



Later , Himyarite. 

 Phoenician. 



Palmyrene. 



Sassanide. 



Samaritan. 



Ethiopie. 



Vulgar Samaritan. 



Tsabian. 



Square Hebrew. 



Bstrangelo & ' 

 Nestorian. 



Cuflc. ' Pesehito. 



i 

 Nischi. 



Uigur. 



** British and Foreign Evangelical Review, No. Ixxv., p. 159. 

 <' Baldwin, Prehistoric Nations, 87. 

 ♦8 Davies, Celtic Researches, 242. 

 *» Journal Asiatique. Mai, 1847. 



