1862.] Literary Intelligence, 8fc. 533 



Camera lucida, by that excellent artist, Mr. Ford, as a basis for the 

 engraving, which is designed for the pages of the forthcoming num- 

 ber of our home Journal. I myself have tested every letter of the 

 Inscription and added many that were wholly illegible when the 

 relic was first discovered. 



My object in forwarding this most interesting record is, that it 

 may be submitted to the Antiquarians in your Presidency, with a 

 view to an independent translation being made, prior to the receipt 

 of Professor Dowson's rendering of the text, which will probably not 

 be published much within a month from this date. With this ob- 

 ject of testing oriental scholarship, I abstain from all comments on 

 the many important bearings of the document itself, though I feel 

 bound to anticipate Professor Dowson's own announcement of his 

 successful discovery of the value of the numerals composing the 

 date, which even the last number of your Journal (III. 1862, p. 303) 

 shows to be far from accomplishment by your local contributors. I 

 must premise in order to dispel any doubts about the positive accu- 

 racy of the present interpretation, that Mr. JSTorris independently 

 worked out precisely the same result on the problem involved in this 

 inscription being submitted to him. In brief, then, the numerals 

 employed in Arian or Bactro-Pali Inscriptions follow an Egyptian 

 system. Units are found to run I = 1, 11 = 2,111=3, but the 4, 

 unlike the Kapurdigiri example of II il, is now formed by a cross, 

 similar to a Roman % , a symbol, it is true, we do not find in any 

 Egyptian Hieroglyphic scheme, though the five-pointed star excep- 

 tionally denoted 5. It will be seen that the Arian eight is formed 

 by a duplication of the four in this fashion XX. 



The ten is represented by a semi-circle, and, in its system of dupli- 

 cation, triplication, &c, proves in like manner to take after the usa°-e 

 of the Egyptians ; though it is unquestionable that one of the less 

 common forms of the Phoenician ten is expressed thus ) (Gesenius 

 p. 87), yet, to my understanding, the whole scheme seems to be 

 based more directly upon the purely Egyptian ideal,* than upon any 



* Hieroglyphic Numbers p. 402. Encylop. Metr. by E. S. Poole, Esq. and 

 Revue Archeologique, p. 261, November 1862. 



One or 1 



Two Q (J or 11 



