IMITATIVE AND SYMBOLICAL. 



281 



the pure hierog-lyph, or simple picture-style ; the mixed, allegorical, or em- 

 blematic; the abbreviated or contracted ; and the alphabetic; and the valu- 

 able relics which are to be seen in the British Museum, more especially the 

 sarcophagi and the famous Rosetta stone (as it is called), erected in honour of 

 Ptolemy V., contain examples of most of them. They prove to us, also, the 

 order of succession in which the changes were effected, and clearl)'' indicate 

 the pure picture-style to be the most ancient. 



The magnificent ruins of Persepolis, the capital of ancient Persia, offer 

 monuments to the same effect. The windows, the pillars, the pilasters, and 

 the tombs are loaded with characters of some kind or other, imitative, emblem- 

 atical, or alphabetical. In many instances, the pure picture-style is as cor- 

 rectly adhered to as in any Egyptian specimen ; in others we meet with 

 tablets filled with what may indeed be abbreviated emblems, but which appear 

 to be letters ; and which, at any rate, afford proof that the ancient Persians 

 had, at this period, made some advance from characters for things towards 

 characters for words. 



The prophecy of the utter destruction of Babylon has been so completely 

 fulfilled, that, although the banks of the Euphrates, on which this city stood, 

 give evident proofs of magnificent ruins along their track, we cannot exactly 

 ascertain its situation. On many of the bricks, however, which have been 

 dug up from the midst of the general wreck, we find a peculiar sort of cha- 

 racter, evincing an approach towards letters, and which are supposed to be 

 abbreviated emblems, as emblems are often abbreviated pictures, employed 

 by the Chaldean sages of Babylonia; who, according to Pliny, always en- 

 graved their astronomical observations on bricks.* And even in Southern 

 Siberia, as high as the river Irbit, or Pishma, Strahlenberg asserts, that he 

 found a variety of rude figures or emblems engraven on the rocks,f whicl/, 

 seem to have preceded the use of the Tartar or Mantcheu alphabet. 



In America we meet with traces of picture-writing amid the most savage 

 tribes ; every leader on returning from the field endeavouring to give some 

 account of the order of his march, the number of his adherents, the enemy 

 whom he attacked, and the scalps and captives he brought home, by scratch- 

 ing with coarse red paint a certain display of uncouth figures upon the bark 

 of a tree, stripped off for this purpose. " To these simple annals, he trusts 

 for renown, and sooths himself with a hope, that by their means he shall 

 receive praise from the warriors of future times. "| The Mexicans are well 

 known to have acquired such a degree of perfection in this style of writing, 

 that on the first arrival of the Spaniards on their coasts expresses were sent 

 off to Montezuma, the reigning monarch, containing an exact statement of 

 the fact, together with the number and size of the different ships, by a series 

 of pictures alone, painted on the cloth of the country. It was thus this people 

 kept their public records, histories, and calendars. We are still in posses- 

 sion of several very curious specimens of Mexican picture-writing, some of 

 which exhibit several of the very emblems I have just adverted to, as those 

 which would probably be had recourse to in our own day, were we miracu- 

 lously to be deprived of all knowledge of alphabetic writing ; as, a bale 

 of goods to represent the idea of commerce, and a rose-tree that of odour. 

 The most valuable specimens, however, of Mexican picture-writing are those 

 obtained by Mr. Purchas, and published in sixty-six plates, divided into three 

 parts ; the first containing a history of the Mexican empire under its ten mo- 

 narchs: the second, a tribute roll, representing what each conquered town 

 paid into the royal treasury ; and the third, a code of Mexican institutions, 

 domestic, political, and military. Various other specimens are to be met 

 with in different parts of Spain, and especially in the Royal Library at the 

 Escurial; and a folio volume in the Imperial Library at Vienna. Along with 

 the full pictures, we occasionally meet, in some of these national archives, 

 with emblems, or a prominent feature put for the whole figure and in others 

 with various symbols or arbitrary characters, making an approach towards 



• Plin. vii. 56. t De Vet. Lit. Hun. p. 15. Astle, p. 6. 



t Robertson's America, vol, iii. b. vii. p. 303. Astle, p. 6. 



