As an illustration bearing upon the specimens set forth in the table we have the ideogram of Nineveh
. The archaic form of this character
proves that it was compounded of the ideographic picture of a house, enclosing the ideogram of the fish
, thus preserving record of the instructive fact that imperial Nineveh was at first, as its name implies (nun, "fish," is the name of the fourteenth letter of the Semitic alphabet), a collection of fishermen's huts (cf. Taylor, i. 41). The frequent mixture of old and new forms in cuneiform writings and the different values sometimes given to the same sign, have increased the difficult task of interpretation. As in the earlier stages of other languages, determinatives were used; e.g. all names of men were preceded by a single upright wedge, of countries by three horizontal wedges, and so on. But in the examples given in the table, the gradual conventionalising of the signs is seen, as in that for "ox," wherein the modification of the head and horns of the animal into the phonogram is obvious, while the Behistun inscription exhibits well-defined stages of approach to simplification. The cumbrous cuneiform which fills the third column has five hundred symbols, ideograms, phonograms, and homophones; the Medic, which occupies the second column, is written in ninety-six pure syllabic signs; while the Persian tells the same story in thirty-six alphabetic signs, four only of the primitive ideograms being retained. This survival of use of ideograms, it may be noticed in passing, has illustration among ourselves in many ways. As certain parts of the body, e.g. hand, foot, bosom (in Anglo-Saxon fæthem, i.e. "fathom," or the space of both arms extended), and forearm (Latin ulna, Anglo-Saxon eln, whence "ell"), became and remain standards of measurement, so it is with certain modes of reckoning. The digits, I, II, III, IIII (Latin digitus, "a finger") are unquestionably pictures of fingers, and Grotefend contends with good reason that V is a picture of the four fingers closed and the thumb extended, while X would represent the two hands, IV the subtraction and VI the addition of a finger. The use of a primitive decimal notation is widespread among barbaric peoples. In chess problems the several pieces are pictorially represented; in the planetary signs, ☿ is the caduceus or wand of Mercury; ♀ is the mirror of Venus, while the entomologist, in cataloguing his specimens, uses these symbols for the male and female respectively. In ♂ we have the shield and spear of Mars; in ♃ , the sign for Jupiter, the arm wields a thunderbolt; and the mower's scythe ♄ is the symbol of Saturn (connected with Latin sero, satum, "to sow"), the god of agriculture. The signs of the Zodiac, which were mapped out by the old Chaldeans, supply a still more cogent example. In the form in which they are depicted on the ancient temple of Denderah, in Egypt, there may be traced evidence of their primitive pictorial character, a character still recognised in the headings of the months in our almanacks (cf. Whitaker's), and to be detected in current symbols. For example, the curved horns of the ram survive in ♈ , the sign for Aries; the head and horns of the bull in ♉ , the sign for Taurus; the arrow and a portion of the bow in ♐ , the sign for Sagittarius; while, as Dr. Taylor points out, "the curious symbol
is found to preserve the whole outline of Capricornus, the small circle being the head of the goat, with the forelegs below, and the body and tail extending to the left." Then in such entries in the almanack as "
