ETRURIA CAPTA. 147 



first syllabaries, each character denoting the combined sound of a 

 consonant and vowel. There is, of course, also a bare possibility 

 that phonographs may be complex, representing words, as in the 

 Egyptian, Assyrian, and Chinese, in which case they might receive 

 the name of ideographs ; but in the case of the Etruscan chai-acters 

 this is hardly likely, as the hieroglyphic form has entirely dis- 

 appeared from them. The problem, therefore, is to find the powers 

 of that Turanian alphabet or syllabary, of which the Etruscan system 

 of writing is one of the variant forms. An attempt to solve the 

 problem necessitates a wide outlook, which shall embrace in com- 

 parative study all ancient Turanian methods of speech notation. 



THE ANCIENT TURANIAN SYLLABARY. 

 For several years I have given the greater part of my leisure time 

 to a solution of the problem thus presented, being stimulated thereto 

 by the discovery of the Hittite tablets engraved in hieroglyphic 

 characters at Hamath and Carchemish. These Hittite hieroglyphics, 

 representing human, animal and other figures, like the Egyptian, but 

 less conventionally, I take to be the originals of the Turanian 

 alphabet or syllabary. With the exception of my own translitera- 

 tion and translation, which is, I now find, very imperfect, these 

 inscriptions have not been read, and are, therefore, unavailable as 

 materials for interpretation in themselves.^ But it has been shown 

 by Professor Sayce and other stvidents that the alphabetic characters 

 found on Cyprian monuments bear a somewhat similar relation to the 

 hieroglyphics of Syria to that which the hieratic bears to the Egyp- 

 tian hieroglyphic.^ The phonetic values of many Cypriote characters 



The same is the case with the Corean and ancient Japanese. For the Corean alphabet and 

 syllabary, see plate 1 of Atlas accompanying Klaproth's Translation of the San Kokf Tsou 

 Ran To Sets, Oriental Translation Fund's Publications. 



6 A friendly critic siiggests that my admission of great imperfections in the transliteration 

 and translation of the Hittite inscriptions is not reassuring. Neither in that document nor 

 elsewhere have t made any claim to infallibility ; nor, I trust, shall I ever fail to admit with 

 becoming frankness the errors which are almost unavoidable in the pioneer work which has 

 fallen to me. I do adhere firmly to my reading of the bilingual inscription of Tarkutimme, and 

 of the names Shalmanezer, Sagara, Pisiris, Khintiel, Rezin, Hamath, Hittite, and many other 

 words in the larger inscriptions. Some of the Hittite hieroglyphics I am still in doubt about. 

 To others I find that I attached false phonetic values which I have since corrected. The 

 majority of my identifications I have confirmed by subsequent extensive comparisons with 

 materials not at first accessible to me. 



7 In an article on the Hamathite inscriptions in the Trans. Socy Bib. Archffiol, Vol. V., p. 31 

 Professor Sayce says: "Some time ago I expressed the opinion in the Academy that this 

 earlier system of writing was none other than the hieroglyphics of Hamath." The earlier 



