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firft the complete figure of Thau , (8) from P. Lupi’s 
draught of it, taken upon the fpot, in 1735, I 
think we may fairly prefume. And that the Thau , 
as it there appears, was not feldom ufed in the 
earlier Carthaginian times, from the medals of Me- 
nas already touched upon, to omit others that might 
be produced, is, I conceive, inconteftably clear. 
III. 
I cannot forbear fufpedling, that M. l’Abbe has a 
little deviated from the genuine form of the Aleph 
in his plate; notwithftanding the accuracy with which, 
as he informs us, Count Caylus’s copy was taken. That 
Phoenician element occurs upon my Punic and Phoe- 
nician coins, not to mention thofe of' my friends, a- 
bove thirty times ; and yet not one of thefe charac- 
ters exhibits an angle, formed of two right lines 
cutting the perpendicular, as does the Aleph here. 
Nor do we meet with fuch a figure of Aleph in the 
Citiean infeription, preferved on the original ftone, 
brought from Cyprus by Dr. Porter, and prefented 
to the Univerfity of Oxford by Charles Gray, Efq; 
member of Parliament for Colchefter, and fellow 
of the Royal Society ; though the ufual form of this 
letter is found, oftener than once, in that infeription. 
P. Lupi’s copy (9) of the Maltefe infeription exhibits 
the Aleph (whole dudts were perhaps better preferved 
when that tranfeript was taken than at the time Count 
(8) Sig. Ant. Fran. Gor. Difcf dell’ Alphab. Etrufc. p. 102. 
& Tab. III. p. 109. In Firenze, 1749. Lup. Letter. Pbilelog . 
Let. XT. p. 6. 
(9) Gor. Difef. deir Alpbeib. Etrufc. & Lup. ubi flip. 
Caylus’s 
