56 THE TRIQUETRA. 



the architectural ones do not go farther back 

 than the earliest arrow-headed inscriptions which 

 have been copied. 



" Now we have already a clue as to the begin- 

 ning of the tombs. The earliest inscription in 

 the language of the supposed sculptors of the 

 tombs has a distinct date, as we have seen, sub- 

 sequent to the Persian conquest; and it mentions 

 the general to whom that conquest was intrusted 

 by Cyrus, and who effected it. Let us now see 

 whether a similar limit as to date cannot be 

 elicited from the coins themselves, independently 

 of all antecedent probability. 



" It has been most happily and ingeniously sug- 

 gested by a gentleman interesting himself with 

 the late researches in this country, that the in- 

 strument to which the name of triquetra has been 

 given, is in reality a grappling-iron, a hook — 

 a^Trayoc, — that the Persian general, finding him- 

 self governor of a district in which his language 

 was as yet not spoken, and desiring to make his 

 name known as the lord of the district, in all the 

 cities which owed him allegiance, and in which 

 his followers took up their abode, instead of 

 engraving his name or his portrait, put a sym- 

 bol upon his coins, which must immediately 



