24 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



eries made by two Americans, the Rev. S. Jessup and Mr. J. A. 

 Johnson. Their announcement of the discovery of the Hamah 

 inscriptions awoke a profound interest in the minds of antiquarians, 

 linguists and historians. Soon rude copies of the stones were pro- 

 cured, and given to the world through the medium of the American- 

 Palestine Exploration Society. Captain Burton's explanations of the 

 stone, and of its strange writings, deepened the growing interest in the 

 Hamah inscriptions. Dr. Wright and Mr. W. R. Green, working 

 through the Sublime Pasha, at last succeeded in securing these stones, 

 thus opening the way to the discovery of the lost Empire of the 

 Hittites. When the natives found that their treasures were about 

 to be removed, they threatened to destroy them rather than permit 

 them to be taken away. Let me quote Dr. Wright's words :— " I saw 

 " now that a crisis was reached. For hundreds, perhaps thousands 

 " of years these mute inscriptions had waited for some one to hear 

 " their story. Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Selucedse, Roman, Saracen, 

 " Crusader and Turk had passed them by as unworthy of even a 

 "passing notice; and now, that travellers from the Isles of the Sea, 

 " eager to learn their secrets, had arrived, their voice was to be 

 "hushed for ever. A greater calamity than the Moabite stone 

 "tragedy was imminent — a mighty empire was about to claim its 

 " rightful position among the great nations of the ancient world, and 

 " a few fanatics were about to push it back into the outer darkness 

 " to which classic history had assigned it." Happily for the cause 

 of truth, and for the right understanding of the past, the designs of 

 ignorant zeal were frustrated, and the Hamah stones secured. 



But what is the import of these inscriptions ? By some they 

 were regarded not as writings, but as the vagaries of ornamentation. 

 But the shape of the sharply cut figures, their resemblance to the 

 Cypriote Syllabary, and the discovery of writings similar, have estab- 

 lished the fact of their being literature on stone. 



This admitted, how are they to be read ? Captain Burton 

 thought the key to unlock the inscriptions was to be found in the 

 rude tribe marks of the Bedawi. But the location of the inscriptions 

 belonging to the family of which the Hamah stone are a specimen, 

 the finish of the characters of the writing — a finish clearly indicating 

 good instruments, well used by the skilful hands of ready scribes — 

 are against the supposition that much light to their discipherment is 



