ETRURIA CAPTA. 161 



Still another guttural sign, which at times replaces equally ka and ko, 

 or the house and the tree, is one which resembles an arrow pointing 

 downwards, or an anchor with the flukes pointing upwards. This, 

 doubtless, is but another form of the tree, or of a plant, the so-called 

 flukes representing the branches or lower leaves. This does not 

 agree with the Cypriote, for in that syllabary the phonetic value 

 assigned to the same character is te. It is, however, one of the tree 

 or plant forms in Hittite, and occurs abundantly in India and 

 Siberia. In the famous edict of Asoka, it constitutes the last 

 character in that monarch's name.^^ 



The sibilants only remain. Two of these, in the forms C and K, 

 I have already set forth when dealing with the aspirate I. The 

 broad powers of S, i.e., sa, za, as, so, su, are represented by a single 

 character, generally read I from its resemblance to that Roman letter. 

 However, the lower limb of the Etruscan character is not horizontal, 

 but stands in the same relation to the perpendicular that the upper 

 limb does to that of the character ba, pa. I can think of no sign 

 exactly corresponding to it, although the radical sign in arithmetic 

 comes near it. In the Indian inscriptions, the same values are 

 represented by the perpendicular sign in geometry. Its Aztec 

 equivalent is xotl a foot. In Hittite it has the shape of a foot or a 

 carpenter's square. In Corean, the lower limb leaves the perpen- 

 dicular above the base and slants downward, still preserving the idea 

 of a foot. The upward slope of the Etruscan may be a reminiscence 

 of the up-turned toe of the chai-acteristic Hittite boot. The last 

 character calling for mention is one which combines the one just 

 considered with the Y-like ko. It consists of a perpendicular, 

 touched or traversed by two equidistant lines at an angle of 30° or 

 more, according to the fancy of the artist. It may roughly be 

 represented by a double dagger, and appears to have the phonetic 

 value itch, ich, itz. It may, therefore, be the Aztec itztli, a dart. 

 In Hittite, a single dagger probably represents the same. The 

 Cypriote si shows some resemblance to this charactei', but its value 



36 Asoka, King of Cashmere, is spoken of in the Raja Tarangini or History of the Kings of 

 Cashmere, book I. si. 101 seq. , as the first royal convert to the faith of Buddha. See Troyer, 

 Radja Tarangini, Tome II in loc. cit. also p. 406 seq. ; and for reference to the inscriptions p. 

 413. Facsimiles of some of the inscriptions are found in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic 

 Society. The name of the author of the inscriptions has been read as Piyadasi, whom Indian 

 scholars have identified with Asoka. I read the author's name, which occurs frequently, but 

 not in the characters read Piyadasi, as Asoka. But I find no mention of Antiochus, Ptolemy, 

 and Magas, whose names are said to appear in these proclamations. 



