MERGE TO GYRENE. 
541 
sentence or any single word. Many of them are Greek letters, which 
are occasionally reversed, and placed in various positions, so that the 
same letter might at first sight be taken for several others distinct 
from itself ; sometimes two or more Greek letters appear together 
on the same stone, (occasionally united in a kind of cipher,) and their 
forms are often made out so rudely, from the dispatch used in cutting 
and often scratching them on the blocks of stone, as not to bear a 
very close resemblance to the usual ones. Some of them are not 
letters of any kind, but simply marks or characters invented for the 
occasion, as will be observed by the instances which are given of them 
below *. We fear, too, that even if the characters in question had 
really been inscriptions of the greatest importance, they must have 
been for ages lost to the world, and were certainly never intended to 
meet the public eye by those who had them placed where they are ; 
for the whole interior of the cisterns, or reservoirs, upon the stones ot 
We take these character.-? from the last page of Signor Della Celia’s book, where they 
are inserted without any remarks, and presume that they must be those alluded to , since 
all the other inscriptions which he has introduced in different parts of his work are 
accounted for, and are either in Greek or Latin. It wall be evident, we think, to 
all who are accustomed to see Greek and Roman quarry marks, that the characters in 
question are no other, and could never have been found on any single stone. 
