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pear strange. In like manner I must read the name of Phthah 
—P,-T, -H, ipt-ah; and that of Psamitik, -P, -S, -M,-T, —K, zps-am- 
it-ik ; all the consonants in these names being terminal. I justify this 
by the name of the town which the Greeks called Primis. Its hiero- 
glyphic name has been found in inscriptions there, and is —P, -R, -M 
ip-ir-im. It has been handed down to this day by oral tradition, and 
is now pronounced Jérim. Even in this word, where the second con- 
sonant is 7, the junction of which with a preceding consonant is, com- 
paratively speaking, so easy, the Egyptians prefixed a vowel. Much 
more must it have been necessary to do so, when the word began with 
such a combination as PT, which even Europeans find it difficult to pro- 
nounce. To complete what I may have to say on the subject of tran- 
scription, I will here observe that I should transcribe such a character 
as the embattled wall (or basket) by M-N; and if this were followed 
by a complementary —N, I would use an Italic in place of a Roman ca- 
pital for this, expressing the remainder of the syllable by a Roman 
capital, and enclosing the whole in a parenthesis, thus—(M-. —J). 
On the same principle, I should transcribe the word for ‘‘life,”? when 
written with three characters (O-. W.-H) ’unkh ; thus indicating 
that the first character might represent the whole word. As a general 
rule, any of the three vowels may be supplied; but Greek transcrip- 
tions, Coptic equivalents, and sometimes analogous words in other lan- 
guages, will often suggest the proper vowel. When these fail, I will 
supply e, as Lepsius has done in similarcases. I came to the conclusion 
that this was the proper manner of valuing the hieroglyphic characters 
by @ priort reasoning, from what I had discovered respecting the Cunea- 
tic characters. I have since tested this conclusion by examining a 
number of hieroglyphic words, the reading of which, according to the 
principles here proposed, seems preferable to that which has been here- 
tofore adopted. For example, the fields in which the blessed were sup- 
posed to dwell have been heretofore called the fields of aaru or aualu. 
Omitting, however, the plural termination, we have in inscriptions of 
the eighteenth dynasty the forms A—. -A.L-, A-. L—and—A. L-, all 
of which, supplying the vowel 7 from the analogy of the Greek, I read 
alu or il. The plural termination, sometimes written W-, and some- 
times only indicated by the three small bars, I take to have been wz. 
The fields zJuwi were the qAvovov rediov of Homer. The form of the 
Greek word, however it originated, is clearly that of IyNovedov, which 
is the hieroglyphic P—.L-—. pilu. In a future paper I hope to give 
other examples, together with a list of the elementary syllabic charac- 
ters with their values. At present I can only point out some exceptions 
to this mode of valuing the characters which exist, with what I take to 
be the reason of their existence. As in the case of the Assyrian cha- 
racters, those which represent elementary syllables could not have re- 
presented these only. They must have represented also complete syl- 
lables, and such as were also words. For the very same reason the 
hieroglyphic elementary characters must also have represented words ; 
and it may be that these words were different from any that were com- 
posed of the elementary syllable. For example, the owl, as an elemen- 
tary syllable, denoted -M; but as a word it denoted M—O. The name 
