ETRURIA CAPTA. 149 



■writing of the two peoples should also coincide. It is easier to trace 

 the resemblance between the Corean characters and those of the 

 Mound Builders than to show the relation of the latter to the Aztec 

 hieroglyphics. I say Aztec rather than Mexican, for with the 

 inscriptions of Yucatan and Guatemala we have nothing to do. Yet 

 I am convinced that the Mound Builder characters are the cursive 

 form of the Aztec hieroglyphics. Thus, starting from hieroglyphics, 

 I ended at the same, embracing the only two hieroglyphic systems, 

 excepting the Egyptian, in existence. On close examination I found 

 that the hieroglyphics of Mexico stand in a very definite and intimate 

 relation to those of Syria, spite of the wide interval between them in 

 space and time.'' As the phonetic syllabic values of the Aztec 

 characters are well known, I gained in them the actual key to the old 

 Turanian syllabary. The values of the Aztec hieroglyphics I found 

 to correspond in almost every case with those which, on the authority 

 of the Cypriote and the Corean alphabets, I had affixed to the 

 characters, Etruscan and otherwise, most resembling them. Thus, for 

 example, the Cypriote shield-like character having the power mo, and 

 the Corean parallelogram possessing the same value, coincide with 

 the square or circle, which in Aztec denotes the number 10, matlactli, 

 and which in composition is read 771a. 



Passing now westward from Corea, a vast written area appears in 

 Siberia. M. Yl. YouferofF, of the Imperial Society of Geography at 

 St. Petersburg, spared himself no trouble to furnish me with the 

 principal inscriptions found in the Yenisei country. These, with 

 variations, set forth the same Turanian syllabary, rather of the 

 Corean and Cypriote order than of the Aztec and Hittite.^" Never- 

 theless, a few hieroglyphic forms, common to Hittite and Aztec, pro- 

 minent among which is the^sA, appear in these intensely interesting 

 monuments. They also claim kindred with those of the American 

 Mound Builders, as much by the correspondence of written characters 

 as by the rude representations of animals and human figures which 

 they contain. Several of them deal with the reign of Sekata, the 

 Sheketang of the Chinese historians, who virtually headed the 

 Khitan dynasty of China." Searching for traces of the writers of 



9 See plate. 



10 The Hittite and Aztec are hieroglj'phic ; the Cypriote and Corean, cursive or alphabetical 

 or syllabic in form. 



11 The Khitan dynasty of China, coming from the west, took possession of Leaotong m the 

 north east in 907, and extended their sway over the northern part of the empire. From the 



