1835.] Pelilevi Alphabet of the Bactrian Coins. 329 



Mr. Masson first pointed out in a note addressed to myself, through 

 the late Dr. Gerard, the Pehlevi signs, which he had found to stand 

 for the words Menandrou, Apoilodotou, Ermaiou, Basileos, and Soteros. 

 When a supply of coins came into my own hands, sufficiently legible to 

 pursue the inquiry, I soon verified the accuracy of his observation ; 

 found the same signs, with slight variation, constantly to recur; 

 and extended the series of words thus authenticated, to the names of 

 twelve kings, and to six titles or epithets. It immediately struck me 

 that if the genuine Greek names were faithfully expressed in the un- 

 known character, a clue would through them be formed to unravel 

 the value of a portion of the Alphabet, which might in its turn be 

 applied to the translated epithets and titles, and thus lead to a know- 

 ledge of the language employed. Incompetent as I felt myself to 

 this investigation, it was too seductive not to lead me to an humble 

 attempt at its solution. 



In Plate XX. are contained the whole of these corresponding legends, 

 Greek and Pehlevi, collated from a very numerous collection, and, 

 deemed to be of sufficient authenticity to be assumed as the data of this 

 inquiry. At the risk of being thought tedious, I will proceed to detail, 

 letter by letter, the authority upon which each member of the new 

 alphabet is supported. 



1. 9, a. No less than four names, viz. Apolhdotus, Antirnachus, Antl- 

 lakides and Azos, commence with the Greek alpha, which in all four 

 cases is represented by the Pehlevi character 9. To this, therefore, 

 there can be no reasonable hesitation in ascribing the value of the 

 initial a or alif, although it will be seen presently, that there is another 

 a more conformable with the ordinary Pehlevi a. It must be remarked 

 that the present letter only occurs at the beginning of words. 



2. ?, e. Two names, E rmaios and Eucratides, begin with the epsilon, 

 and are found in the Pehlevi to have equally the initial ? ; this, on 

 consideration, may be a variation of the initial vowel above given, 

 to endue it with the sound of e. Another form of the same letter % 

 occurs in one or two cases, expressing u ; but the examples of these 

 being too few to inspire certainty, I merely throw out the remark as a 

 conjecture of analogy with the application of the initial alif of the Persian. 



3. T, o. The next circumstance of note is, that every word, without 

 any exception, ends in the letter T, sometimes written "P. The latter 

 may perhaps be called the finished or capital character, bearing an 

 analogy to the Devanagari letter, which is completed by a stroke on 

 the top, as this is by one below : for we shall find that most of the 

 other letters admit of the same addition. T, then, I have supposed to 

 represent the terminal n h of the Hebrew ; or the short omicron of 



T T 



