Philos. Trans. Vol. L. Tab. IV. p. 176.
Fig. 1.
Num. Parth. apud Jeannem Swinton, A. M. Oxoniens. R. S. S.
Fig. 2. p. 202.
Scale of feet, 20-1 Inch
J. Mynde sc.
2. That the Greek and unknown legends on this medal are either of the same or a similar import, will be acknowleged by all versed in this kind of literature extremely probable. The Greek and Phœnician legends on the same [74]coins of Tyre and Sidon, as I have, upon examination, found, and shall hereafter more fully evince, clearly correspond. The Latin and Punic legends on Juba's medals, as has been by me formerly proved[75], very well agree. The sense[76] I have assigned the legend in unknown characters, exhibited by the reverse of my former Parthian coin, with, I flatter myself, some appearance of truth, sufficiently answers to the Greek one preserved by other medals of the same prince. We may therefore be permitted to suppose, that both the legends handed down to us by the coin before me related to Monneses, and conveyed the same, or at least extremely similar, ideas to the Parthians and the Greeks. Nothing can be more consonant to reason, tho' we must not directly assume this as a postulate, than such a supposition.
3. This notion will likewise receive a farther accession of strength from the characters of which the unknown legend is composed. The first of them so nearly approaches one of the forms of the Palmyrene Pe, as it appears in [77]Mr. Dawkins's alphabet, that we may without scruple ascribe to it the power of that letter. The second is so like the Palmyrene and the Chaldee Daleth[78], that it ought indubitably to pass for that element. The third differs something, tho' not greatly[79], from one of the forms of the Palmyrene He. The fifth, which likewise occupies the eighth place, is by no means remote from the figures of the [80]Palmyrene and Chaldee Nun. The sixth occurred in the third place before. With regard to the seventh, it seems to me pretty strongly to resemble some forms of the Palmyrene Mem[81], and even exactly to answer to that of the same letter in [82]one of the Palmyrene inscriptions preserved amongst those celebrated remains of antiquity commonly, tho' perhaps improperly, stiled The Ruins of Persepolis. The ninth is the He touched upon before. The tenth, which also succeeded the third, if the powers of the other elements have been rightly determined, must be Schin. Nor does this character, if we view it in a certain position, appear very remote from a rude form of that letter. This legend then, according to what is here advanced, as it now remains, consists of the words——PADESHANE MONESH, PADESHAN EMONESH, or [83]PADESHAN AMONESH, that is, MONESH, or AMONESH,——OF KINGS; the word PADISHAH, or rather PADESHAH, as it seems to have been written and pronounced by the [84]ancient Persians, in the Pehlawian, Pehelawian, or Bastanian, that is, the old Persic, tongue, denoting [85]King. That NI, or NE, was sometimes a masculine plural termination in the antient Persic, seems to appear from the word, or rather words,
