CYLINDERS WITH HITTITE INSCRIPTIONS. 269 
although I have met it on other seals. It is very abundant and more fully developed 
on terra-cotta objects, as in fig. 799. 
In this connection it is proper to call attention to the bilingual silver boss of 
Tarkondemus (fig. 800), King of Erme. Unfortunately these two bilinguals are 
so short that they give us little aid in decipherment. There is quite a number of 
round, pierced objects, of terra-cotta or of hematite, sometimes with several Hittite 
\hiee 


characters, which seem to have taken the place of the cylinder seal. Examples 
are given in figs. 801, 802. Both of these show, on hematite, the elaborate Hittite 
and Mycenzan spiral; this is absent in fig. 803, which is of terra-cotta. Fig. 804 
is of a different type, a rectangular hematite seal, with the four vertical edges beveled 
and engraved on the four sides as well as the end. 
Much labor has been expended by Sayce, Jensen, and others on the decipher- 
ment of the Hittite inscriptions, and some characters are satisfactorily determined, 
and yet much remains to be done before scholars can be agreed as to the translation 
or even the transliteration of the inscriptions. 


Y) 
e 
"GCS Y) Y 

