[ 1 34 - ] 
rit the attention of the learned, when he is pleated 
to after t, that “ M. l’Abbe Barthelemy has actually 
“ P roved > from this infcription, that the Phoenician 
“ language is nothing elfe but the Syriac tongue.” 
xnr. 
As the moft antient Phoenician language was al- 
moft intirely the fame with the (25) Hebrew, the Sy- 
1 lac woids that occur in this infcription, together with 
what has been alieady remarked of the forms of the 
letters it contains, announce it to have been of a later 
date. The figure of the Koph in particular agrees in 
all refpedts with the form of the fame element ex- 
hibited by a coin ftruck at Achola, or Achulla, as 
the name appears on this medal, in the Auguftan, 
a § e * ^ ^at this time, and even earlier, as well as 
later, feveral Syriac words fhould have been ufed by 
the Phoenicians of Tyre, can be no matter of fur- 
prize, when we confider, that the Jews themfelves, 
dining this period, fpoke a language extremely fimi- 
lar to, if not almoft: intirely the fame with, the Syriac. 
XIV. 
I mud beg leave farther to remark, that, by the af- 
fiftance of the monument now before me, two Phoe- 
nician proper names have been difcovered, which 
have never hitherto in any of the antient hiftorians 
occurred. As the Aleph in ID? 1 ? was, however, fome- 
times pronounced like E, and perhaps I, the word 
(25) Bochart. Chan. Lib. II. cap. 1. 
ABDISSAR 
