1921.| Prehistoric writing in India and Europe. 285 
were due to their all having drawn from one common source. 
Thus we may accept Dussaud’s table! for the present slightly 
modified (as shown by the italics, as possibly configuring the 
development of alphabets. 
Alphabetic prototype 
| 
| 
X (Cyptiote ?) Archaic (Proto-Egypto-Graeco-Indic) 
ae : | 
= | oe | 
Phoenician Sabaean Greek, Latin Early Indic 
alphabets alphabets alphabets, etc. alphabets 
Brahmi 
That the question is not so simple would be realized by 
finding that we have probably to recognise the remnants of a 
Hittite or Phaestos disc-like or a cognate hieroglyphic system 
in such sporadic figures as xy x ¥ from caves in Orissa* 
and in some of the signs of the earliest Indian seals which have 
Aryan question, is a matter about which it is too early to speak 
at present. 
As for the proper acrophonic values of these early forms 
I think it would not be quite safe to say anything till we 
have discovered some bilingual inscription as at Caria.’ 
Besides, the linear alphabetiform character of several pre- 
n 
with some prehistoric ‘racial or cultural migrations in Asia, o 
which I hope to be able to offer a study at some future date. 
a 
) Les Civilisations pre helleniques, 1910, p. 293. 
2 Vide Corpus Inseriptionum Indicarum, Plate XVII. 
3 Vide J.R.A.S. Jan. 1920 
