26 



readings of some of the names written with the first kind of 

 cuneiform character. 



10. Comparison of the contents of the part of the Be- 

 histun inscription, in the first kind of cuneatic writing, with 

 the historic record of Herodotus, as far as they relate to the 

 same particulars ; and confirmation thence derived of the great 

 accuracy of the father of Pagan history. 



11. The five hieroglyphs, at the bottom of the Egyptian 

 cartouches of both Xerxes and his son Artaxerxes, examined, 

 and shewn, in opposition to the received opinion on the sub- 

 ject, to be therein used, not as letters, but as symbols ; and 

 proved to denote neither " Persian," nor "great," but " great 

 king, ruler over kings," in complete accordance with the an- 

 cient title of the Persian sovereigns preserved in the cuneatic 

 legends of the first kind, 



12. To proceed now to the consideration of the two other 

 kinds of cuneiform writing. The space occupied by the epi- 

 taph of Cyrus in each of those kinds is but half of that it takes 

 up in the first kind ; — a very striking circumstance, which is 

 not at all accounted for by the assumption at present in vogue, 

 that the characters belonging to both these kinds are syllabic 

 signs, and can be attributed solely to an essential difference 

 in the mode of significancy between them and the elements 

 of the first kind of this writing. 



13. Some of the characters in the first and second kinds of 

 this writing are exactly the same, and more of them are very 

 similar. If, then, they were used as letters in both systems, no 

 matter which may be looked upon as the later or derivative 

 set, the framer of one of the alphabets, who borrowed the 

 shapes of some of his letters from the other, would a fortiori 

 have thence taken their powers also. But this has certainly 

 not been done. For instance, the powers h, r, and t, which 

 are ascertained to belong, respectively, to three elements of the 

 first kind of cuneatic writing, would not at all answer, either 

 by themselves or with any vowels joined to them, as phone- 



