100 THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, LL.D., M.K.A.S., ON 



and Egypt on the west, and from the Caspian Sea on the 

 north to Arabia on the south, cannot fail to have exercised 

 considerable influence beyond those borders and boundaries — an 

 influence of which we shall not obtain a full idea for many 

 years to come. 



IsTow that we have learned so much abo\it these ancient 

 nations, and their peculiar wedge-formed characters, we know 

 also something of their power and the wide influence of their 

 writing. It is now known that the so-called Phoinician goes 

 back to 1,500 or 2,000 years before Christ, but there was a time 

 when the cuneiform script, in one form or other, was used all 

 over Western Asia within the limits I have indicated. In 

 addition, therefore, to Semitic Babylonian, the cuneiform script, 

 derived from that of Babylonia, was used by the Assyrians, who 

 ispoke the same language ; the Elamites, who spoke Babylonian 

 and ancient Elamite ; the Armenians, who seem to have 

 obtained the syllabary they used from Assyria ; the Palestinian 

 states, who got their script from Babylonia ; the Mitannians, 

 who also employed the Babylonian style ; the Cappadocians, 

 who at first used ancient Babylonian, though they seem to have 

 been an Assyrian colony ; and the Hittites, who also used the 

 Babylonian style. These are the nationalities who are known 

 to have used some form of the Babylonian wedge- writing, and 

 the list omits ancient Persian on account of the impossibility of 

 tracing any sure connection between their cuneiform alphabet 

 (for that is, perhaps, the best word to use) and the complicated 

 characters of the Babylonians and Assyrians. It will thus be 

 seen, that the cuneiform script, forming, as it does, the medium 

 of communication between so many different peoples of ancient 

 times, is of the utmost importance — indeed, attempts have been 

 made to connect it with the ancient Phoenician, and, through 

 that script, with our writing at the present day. This is not 

 generally accepted, but probably offers, in some cases, 

 comparisons as satisfactory as those obtained with the 

 Egyptian hieroglyphics through the Demotic forms. In 

 addition to the nationalities mentioned above as users of the 

 cuneiform style of writing the inscriptions mention the 

 languages of Su and Suh (the tongue of the Shuhites of Job ii, 

 11, etc.), the Kassites, and the Lulubites. 



But the discovery of new languages, or dialects, or new styles 

 of writing, is not yet over, as is shown by the French excava- 

 tions at Susa. On that interesting site they have found not 

 only a number of Elamite and Babylonian inscriptions in the 

 wedge-formed writing, but also several in a new style, not 



