The cover has been created by the transcriber and placed in the public domain.

IN THE PATH OF THE ALPHABET.

‘Frances D Jermain’

IN THE PATH OF

THE ALPHABET

AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE

ANCIENT BEGINNINGS AND EVOLUTION

OF THE MODERN ALPHABET

BY FRANCES D. JERMAIN

FORT WAYNE, IND.

WILLIAM D. PAGE, PUBLISHER

1906

Copyright, 1906

By S. P. JERMAIN

Published in December

Fort Wayne

Indiana

PREFACE.

In one of the closing days of August, 1905, the author of this work, Frances D. Jermain, received the summons of her Maker to join the Silent Majority. The call came suddenly, finding her in the full possession of her ever remarkable intellectual powers, and with the ambition for much yet to do.

For nearly twenty-five years, she had been at the head of the Toledo Public Library, in the upbuilding of which she was ever the inspiration and the guiding spirit.

With more than the ordinary capacity for organization and the practical, she planned and carried out the working details of all notable improvements, in that thoroughly modern library.

Others, who took up the work from which she retired about a year before her death, will carry it forward with that devotion and capacity which it should inspire; but they will but build additions to the edifice which she reared.

Her death brought forth a remarkable outpouring of voluntary tributes to her worth and work. From these has come the realization that by her death Toledo has lost one whose influence upon its intellectual life was the most potent and far reaching of any citizen it has ever lost.

Living and working nobly in public as in her ideally perfect domestic life, her loss is profoundly felt.

Political administrations came and went, party triumphs and party defeats lived out “their little day” and are long since forgot; but year after year, until a quarter of a century had nearly gone, this brave and learned little woman ruled, with gentle power and kindly wisdom, the destinies of the Toledo Public Library.

In the growth and development of this notable public institution, selecting its contents, the literary advisor of lawyers, journalists, educators and students, she acquired, with her discriminating judgment and retentive memory, a remarkable knowledge of the contents of books. A subject practically never arose upon which she could not at once give, either the needed reference or the full information required, and the library contained seventy thousand volumes!

In this reference work, she became deeply impressed with the need of a concise history of the beginnings and development of our modern alphabet.

The information on the subject was widely scattered and very great. It was found nowhere in a condensed and yet adequate form. She knew from experience what the value to libraries, educators and students generally, a concise history upon the subject would be.

This she undertook and finally completed. Not confining her account to information gathered from works already published dealing with the subject, she kept in constant correspondence with the leading archæologists carrying on researches in both Egypt and the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Thus she literally walked with these great scholars “In the Path of the Alphabet,” and her work took on that original and valuable character based upon those most recent and wonderful discoveries which have forever silenced the voice of “The Higher Criticism.”

This work, which we now reverently give to public print, is therefore based upon her broad and deep knowledge upon the subject—from original sources; a work of patient labor; of a profound Christian faith; a work begun and finished in that spirit by which alone the best work of God’s laborers needs must be done.

Upon her behalf, grateful acknowledgment is here made to Professor A. H. Sayce, Professor H. V. Hilprecht, Professor James A. Craig and Professor C. R. Condor, who walked with her “In the Path of the Alphabet.”

S. P. J.

Toledo, Ohio, December, 1906.

——————————————————————————

In Memorium

From the loving hands

of those to whom her life

was an inspiration which

shall abide.

——————————————————————————

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE ROSETTA STONE.

CHAPTER I.

OF all the splendid achievements of archæological research during the present century, there are none of more universal interest and importance than those which are revealing the origin and history of letters; this, not alone for the historic values of these discoveries, for their illumination of a past of which hitherto there was but a faint conception; but also for what letters have to tell us in explanation or confirmation of Biblical narrative, of their bearing upon our most sacred beliefs.

At the beginning of the present century the great mass of testimony now laid open before us was an apparently impenetrable mystery. Egyptian hieroglyphics and cuneiform inscriptions yet remained, for the most part, but confusion of ornament and meaningless signs. Some little advance, it is true, had been reached during the latter part of the eighteenth century, as to the signification of certain hieroglyphic characters, but these were as yet but conjecture; a groping in the dark, with no means to verify, uncertain, unassured.

With the opening of the present century two events occurred which were to place in the hands of scholars the keys to these mysteries. The first in date of these discoveries, though not in results, was the finding of the Rosetta Stone in 1799.

This was an outcome of the French scientific expedition to Egypt under the first Napoleon. At this date, a French artillery officer, named Boussard, while digging among some ruins at Fort St. Julian, near Rosetta, discovered a large stone, of black basalt, covered with inscriptions. This tablet, now known as “The Rosetta Stone,” was of irregular shape, portions having been broken from the top and sides. The inscriptions were in three kinds of writing; the upper text in hieroglyphic characters, the second in a later form of Egyptian writing, called enchorial or demotic, and the third was in Greek. No one of these had been entirely preserved. Of the hieroglyphic text, a considerable portion was lacking; perhaps thirteen or fourteen lines at the beginning. From the demotic, the ends of about half the lines were lost, while the Greek text was nearly perfect, with the exception of a few words at the end.

The immediate inferences were that these three inscriptions were but different forms of the same decree, and that in the Greek would be found some clew for the decipherment of the others. It was first presented to the French Institute at Cairo where it was destined not long to remain.

The surrender of Alexandria to the British, in 1801, placed the Rosetta Stone, by the terms of the treaty, in the hands of the British Commissioner. This gentleman, himself a zealous scholar and keenly alive to the importance of the treasure, at once dispatched it to England, where it was presented by George III to the British Museum.

A fac simile of the inscriptions was made in 1802, by the “Society of Antiquaries,” of London, and copies were soon distributed among the scholars of Europe. When the Greek inscription was read, it was found to be a decree by the priests of Memphis in honor of King Ptolemy Epiphanes; B. C. 198;

That, in acknowledgment of many and great benefits conferred upon them by this king, they had ordered this decree should be engraved upon a tablet of hard stone in hieroglyphic, enchorial and Greek characters; the first, the writing sacred to the priests; the second, the language or script of the people, and the third that of the Greeks, their rulers.

Also, that this decree, so engraved, should be set up in the temples of the first, second and third orders, near the image of the ever living King.

It might be supposed that with this clew the work of decipherment would be readily accomplished. On the contrary, many of the most distinguished scholars of Europe tried, during the twenty following years, without success.

The chief obstacle in the way was the prevailing opinion that the pictorial forms of Egyptian hieroglyphs were mainly ideographic symbols of things. In consequence, the absurd conceptions read into these characters, led all who attempted the decipherment of these far away from the truth.

It is true that Zoega, a Danish archæologist, and Thomas Young, an English scholar, each independently, about 1787, had made the discovery that the hieroglyphs in the ovals represented royal names, and were perhaps alphabetic; but the signification of these characters were never fully comprehended by either of these great scholars.

The claim made by the friends of Mr. Young as the first discoverer of the true methods of decipherment, rests upon the fact that he gave the true phonetic values to five of these characters in the spelling of the names of certain royal personages, and in 1819 published an article announcing this discovery. He seems, however, to have had so little confidence in this conception that he went no farther with it, and still later, in 1823, lost the prestige he might have gained, by the publication as his belief, that the Egyptians never made use of signs to express sound until the time of the Roman and Greek invasions of Egypt.

The real work of decipherment was reserved for Champollion, who, born at Grenoble, in 1790, was but nine years old when the famous stone was discovered which later on was to yield to him the long lost language of the hieroglyphs.

Among the characters on the Rosetta Stone, in the hieroglyphic text, were to be found certain pictorial forms enclosed in an oval. It had hitherto been suggested that these ovals contained characters signifying royal names. Were these symbolic signs, or how were they to be interpreted? Champollion concluded that some of these signs expressed sound and were alphabetic in character. Thus, if the signs in the cartouche supposed to signify Ptolemy, could be found to be identical, letter for letter, with the Ptolemaios of the Greek inscription, an important proof would be obtained. It so happened that on an obelisk found at Philæ there was a hieroglyphic inscription, which, according to a Greek text on the same shaft should be that of Cleopatra. If, then, the signs for P, t and l in Ptolemaios corresponded with the signs for p, t and l in Cleopatra, the identity of these as alphabetic signs would be confirmed. The comparison fully justified his theory, and further confirmation was supplied by further comparisons, until he finally came into possession of hieroglyphic signs for all the consonants.

Again; certain indications convinced him that these characters appearing in proper names must be also initial letters or initial sounds of Egyptian words of which these signs were the pictorial representations. If this was so, the sign for the letter L, which in the royal names was the picture of a lion, must be the beginning of some word signifying “lion,” which in old Egyptian would begin with the letter or first syllabic sound of L.

The pictorial sign for the letter R was the mouth. The word for mouth, then, in Egyptian must begin with the letter or syllabic sign for R, and so forth.

The early opportunities which Champollion had enjoyed for the preparation of his great work were peculiarly significant. He was educated by his elder brother, a man of great learning, professor of Greek in the Academy of Grenoble, whose companionship early influenced the direction of his younger brother to linguistic studies. In addition to this, the intense interest aroused throughout Europe by the vast collection of antiquities brought thither by the men of letters and science who accompanied Napoleon’s army in Egypt, had compelled the attention of scholars to this special field of research as never before.

With this guidance, and moved by the spirit of the times, Champollion’s studies in ancient Greek led him to an early acquaintance with the Coptic language. It is said that, as a result of this study, at the age of sixteen he read a paper before his academy, maintaining that the Coptic was the language of the ancient Egyptians. This is not now a spoken language, having been supplanted by the Arabic since the seventeenth century, A. D. It, however, survives in the service ritual of the Coptic churches of to-day, and, though written in old Greek characters, the ancient language is still heard, though but few understand it.

As Champollion made use of his hieroglyphic alphabet for the spelling of other words than proper names, his satisfaction may be imagined when he found that these were Coptic words. Thus, the sign for “mouth” for the letter R, was the initial letter or syllabic sign of the Coptic word Ro, signifying mouth. The picture of a lion for the letter L also represented the initial letter or initial syllable of Lavo, the Coptic for lion. The picture of an eagle, representing the sign for the letter A, is also the sign for the initial sound or letter in Ahem, the Coptic for eagle, and so on.

The language, then, of the Hieroglyphs was Coptic, or rather in the Coptic we have a survival of the ancient Egyptian, the language of the pyramid builders. More correctly speaking, it is the Egyptian language of the Ptolemaic period, corrupted with Arabic and Greek idioms, but still including the language of old Egypt.

It was, indeed, a thing which might have been expected, that the language expressed by the ancient Hieroglyphs should bear a resemblance to Coptic, but that the resemblance should be as close as it has proved could scarcely have been expected.

Again, of special interest in this connection, is the fact that in the Greek the writing and language of Egypt should be thus preserved.

[^[1]]“The romance of language could go no further,” says Mr. Butler, “than to join the speech of Pharaoh and the writing of Homer in the service book of an Egyptian Christian.”

At this point, a brief reference, bridging the centuries from the decline of the use of hieroglyphics to the later appearance of the language in its Coptic and Greek forms, should have a place.

The extensive use of Phœnician and Greek alphabets in Egypt and throughout the Orient, for some centuries before the Christian era, had affected the Egyptian script as a social and commercial medium. The hieroglyphics, however, held their own with the priesthood, for sacred and secular uses, until the time of the Emperor Trajanus Decius, 249-252, A. D., which is the latest period in which we find them employed for monumental purposes.

A little over a century later,—with the spread of Christianity, the decline of paganism, the destruction of the Egyptian temples and the dispersion of the priesthood under the Emperor Theodosius,—the interpretation of the hieroglyphics was gradually lost, not again to be read and understood until the discovery and interpretation of the Rosetta Stone.

In 1822 Champollion announced the results of his studies to the “Academy of Inscriptions” of Paris, and followed this by the publication of his work on the “Hieroglyphic System of the Ancient Egyptians,” in which he discussed the proofs that the phonetic alphabet was used in the royal legends of all ages and is the key to the whole hieroglyphic system.

It will be remembered that those who before Champollion had undertaken the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, had based their efforts on the theory that these signs were mainly ideographic. With this as a working theory, all advance was impossible. Champollion, on the contrary, finding the Egyptian system including a phonetic structure, made this a basis for research, achieving a brilliant success. He never fully recognized the composite character of these phonetic signs. From these he constructed an alphabet of nearly two hundred signs, to which his pupil, Salvolini, added one hundred more, thus producing an alphabet of nearly three hundred characters. As Lepsius was to show a little later, while these signs are all phonetic, only a small number—thirty-four in all—are alphabetic, the remainder representing syllables.

It is impossible, in this brief survey, to refer to the special advancements made by other distinguished scholars in this field of research. Since the death of Champollion the work of decipherment has progressed steadily on until the life, the literature and the language of the old Egyptians are open pages which all may read.

There are, however, many things not yet fully understood. Of the Rosetta Stone, two of the texts may now be said to be fully translated; namely, the Greek and the hieroglyphic. This has not been possible until recently, in consequence of the mutilated condition of the tablet, a considerable portion of the hieroglyphic text and part of the demotic, being included in the fragment broken off and lost. Not long ago, however, another stele was found at En Nobeira, near Dammamour, containing a duplicate copy of the Rosetta texts in perfect condition. This is now in the museum at Boulak.

The demotic text has never yet been fully translated. This writing is a cursive script, developed from the hieratic to express the vulgar dialect spoken by the people. As hieratic bears the same relation to hieroglyphic that ordinary writing does to printing, so the demotic, which is a further abridgment of the hieratic, is compared to the latter as bearing the same relation which short-hand does to writing. Some of these latent signs have been identified, but not all.

The first five lines of a Papyrus (containing 75 lines), being the beginning of an ancient hymn addressed to the Deity, are added in the original Hieratic, with the transcription in Hieroglyphic characters. The Hieratic is read from right to left, the Hieroglyphic from left to right. The dots in the middle or end of the lines, written in red ink in the original manuscript, indicate that this is a poetic composition.

HIERATIC AND HIEROGLYPHIC WRITINGS.

[1]. Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt. Vol. II. P. 47.

CHAPTER II.

THE other event referred to, which was to open to scholars another field of research, in interest and importance equal to the Egyptian discoveries, was the work of Grotefend, early in the century, in the decipherment of cuneiform inscriptions.

In many parts of Persia, there are to be found engraved upon the native rocks, or upon ruined temples, inscriptions in peculiar characters. These characters are called cuneiform, because they are made up from combinations of a single sign resembling the head of an arrow or a thin wedge. This sign was formed in three ways, either horizontal,

; vertical,

; or angular,

. From these primary signs, a great variety of combinations appear, either in groups or forming single characters.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century, fragments of these inscriptions, and copies of others, had found their way to Europe and into the hands of scholars. Although some of the most powerful intellects of Europe had attempted their interpretation, but little, if any progress had been made until the beginning of the past century.

In the year 1802, Grotefend, then a young student in the University of Bonn, announced to his colleagues his success in the decipherment of a trilingual inscription copied by Niebuhr from the ruins of a royal palace at Persepolis. It will be remembered that this young scholar had no Rosetta Stone, with an inscription in a known language to indicate either subject or language; simply the strange combinations of these singular signs.

The inscriptions were in three different systems of assortment of the elemental signs, evidently representing three different languages, and as they were placed side by side, it was also evident that they were three versions of the same decree, or record of the same event. One of the versions, which always came first, was simpler than the others. This consisted of about forty signs, while the others were more complicated and numerous. Again, in this version the groups of signs, which evidently formed words, were separated, each from the other, by a slanting wedge which did not appear in the others.

Grotefend also observed that each inscription usually began with a certain group of words. One of these words, on different inscriptions, varied, while the other words of this group remained the same. By a happy guess, he conceived these groups to be royal names and titles, the words which varied on the different inscriptions to be names of different kings, while the words which always continued the same in these groups were their titles. Upon this basis he began his work.

It was known to scholars that certain Achæmenian princes—Darius and his successors—had erected some of the monuments from which copies of the inscriptions were taken. Turning then to the older Persian language, of the time of Darius, for the spelling of the name of this king, he gave alphabetic values to certain of these signs which he supposed might spell the name of Darius. Also, to the words which he supposed represented the titles of this king. These alphabetic values were based upon the spelling of the name and titles in the ancient Zend. In this way he obtained supposed values of six letters in the cuneiform. He then turned to another royal name which might be Xerxes. The name of Darius, in old Persian, or the Zend, is spelled: D-A-R-H-E-A-U-SCH.

Again, the name of Xerxes, in Persian, is KH-SCH-H-E-R-E. Now, if the third sign in the spelling of the name of Darius was the same as the fifth sign in the spelling of the name Xerxes, in the Zend, this must have the phonetic value of R. The comparison proved the correctness of his conception. And again, further confirmation appeared in another royal name, Artaxerxes, where the latter part of the name was the same as the second royal name, and the sign for the second character again corresponded with the letter R.

Thus he compared letter by letter, and sign by sign, until he had found agreement in signs and sound for the names of these kings and their titles.

Grotefend never succeeded much beyond this discovery, which was confined chiefly to the Persian inscription. The language of the others was unknown, and the characters peculiar and more numerous. They each evidently represented more ancient forms of writing, with complications not found in the simpler Persian version. Other scholars have however, carried forward the work begun by Grotefend, some of these reaching the same results independently, as in the case of Sir Henry Rawlinson, who applied the same processes to the other trilingual inscriptions, quite ignorant of Grotefend’s methods, and with further success. Still, to Grotefend is due the honor of first discovering the clew to the cuneiform system, and he it was who first laid a basis for future labors, which, wherever adopted, has reached the most satisfactory results.

As rightly conjectured, the other texts of the trilingual inscriptions are copies of the same decrees, addressed to other peoples of the realm, speaking different languages and possessing different systems of writing. As a Persian ruler of to-day publishes an edict in Persian, Arabic and perhaps a Turanian dialect, so that it may be understood by all his subjects, so the ancient Persian kings put theirs into the languages and systems of writing peculiar to the principal races or people inhabiting the country.

It was not, however, until the discovery and translation of the inscriptions at Nineveh, that the full story of these Persian inscriptions was distinctly revealed. It was then found that the two other texts were addressed, the one to a Semitic people of Persia, the other to a Turanian people, descendants of the primitive inhabitants of the country. The close relations of these two systems of writing to the two similar systems found in Assyria and Babylonia, were in evidence of the kinship of these separate races.

Through the systematic arrangement of the vocabularies of the Semitic and Accadian people, found in the Ninevite remains, the secret of the Persian trilingual inscriptions came to light, revealing the extensive use of the cuneiform writing among the various people of western Asia.

A significant fact in the early history of the decipherments of hieroglyphic and cuneiform characters, are the coincidences in these narratives. Thus the keys to both interpretations came through the sound and spelling of the royal names. Again, the clew given by the Coptic to the sounds of the old Egyptian, was also afforded by the ancient Zend, the sacred language of the Parsees.

Notwithstanding the fact that alphabetic signs were the key to each of these systems of writing, we are not to find that either the hieroglyphic or cuneiform systems were founded on the alphabet. We are to find that alphabetism and a pure alphabet are not identical. We are also to find that before the simplicities of an alphabet are reached; the art of writing in all systems is a series of bewildering complications.

Subjoined are illustrations of cuneiform vowels and consonants as written:

Cuneiform Vowels and Consonants

CHAPTER III.

WHILE yielding to the charm of some master of language, who of us gives a thought to the fact that the grace and flow, the flexibility, the mysterious eloquence of written speech is largely due to the invention of letters. Only twenty-six simple signs, yet what marvels of simplicity and power! In the readiness of these for new combinations, their varied adjustments and readjustments in the formation of words, we find the life and growth, and practically unlimited expansion of language; the rhythmical melodies of verse; those inherent powers which render them so adaptive to the wants of man; and withal, so easy to be acquired. Yet writing without an alphabet is quite possible. In fact, the history of the past is revealing great nations and people in possession of systems of writing and of extensive literature, not founded on an alphabet.

We are nevertheless to find that writing without an alphabet is a difficult and complicated matter. So serious and difficult, that comparatively few could acquire the art, and that though in great measure this was confined to special classes, as the scribes who devoted themselves to the practice, and the priesthood who were invested with the power, yet the art of writing was understood and in common use to an extent incomprehensible when the difficulties of its acquirement are considered. The results were nevertheless to limit the extensions of knowledge, proving in all directions a barrier to progress.

Truly has it been said that “The history of our alphabet is the golden thread which entwines itself with the long story of man’s civilization;” that “It is the greatest triumph of the human mind;” and again, as “The most wonderful of intellectual achievements.” For we are coming to know that letters are an invention, not spontaneous productions or miracles of language, and that evolution, as in other directions of human inquiry, has much to say upon their origin and history.

Though taking us to a past so remote, the record for the greater part is singularly distinct and clear. The story is, however, but a recent revelation, not even as yet fully told, gathering only sufficient coherence within the past forty years to make the telling intelligible or possible. A fragment of inscription here, a roll of papyrus there, illuminated by the inspirations of genius, and the ages which have so long withheld from us the story of our alphabet, are slowly yielding the secret.

To give in brief review the leading facts in this story is the simple purpose of this history.

Before entering upon our narrative, however, we can best understand the obstacles in this path of research—perhaps best understand letters themselves—by a brief survey of the principles upon which the origin and development of graphic representation are said to depend; perhaps we may see more clearly how scholars groping in the dark in their study of these unknown characters came to perceive first one fact and then another, until the great story of letters was revealed.

We are thus first directed to the fact that at different periods of time, in various parts of the globe, different races of men, each in their own way, have invented methods of communicating with the absent, and for the record of events.

Independently of speech, or the art of writing, other methods employed by primitive man of communicating with his kind should first be noted. Thus, the ancient gesture language, common to all races and people, whereby facial expression, attitudes or gesticulations, sorrow, hatred, love, confidence, regret, all emotions were expressed; that picture action which we find appearing in picture writing.

Again, objects representing ideas which were used as message bearers. In illustration of this we have the story told by Herodotus[^[2]] of the King of the Scythians who sent as gifts to Darius when about to invade Scythia, a bird, a mouse, a frog and five arrows. When the Persians asked of the messengers the meaning of these gifts, they would not explain, but told them they should discover for themselves what these things signified. The interpretation suggested by Darius was, that since a mouse is bred in the earth, and a frog lives in the water, the Scythians gave up land and water. The bird signified their speedy flight, and the arrows the surrender of their arms to the Persians.

“Not thus,” said Gobyas, “should you interpret this message. It means, O Persians, unless you become birds and fly into the air, or mice, and hide yourselves beneath the earth, or frogs, and leap into the lakes, ye shall never return to your homes, but be smitten with these arrows.”

Akin to objects as message bearers, is the knight’s glove sent as a challenge to combat, the pipe offered by the North American Indian in token of amity, the rosemary sent in remembrance, or the rose as a token of affection.

Other methods employed for sending messages are of curious interest as commonly used by people far removed from each other in time and place. [^[3]]As the knotted cords of the Chinese, or the quippas of the Peruvians, which by their numbers, the style of knotting, or the distribution in groups, were used as message bearers to all parts of the country. In the same category also are the notched sticks of the North American Indians, the tally sticks of the Danes, the English and other people.

But while in different parts of the world human beings have invented ways of communicating with the absent without the art of writing, to depict an object instead of conveying an object, would result as a simpler and more lasting method of expression.

Thus, in simple pictures of objects, we find the earliest beginnings of the art of writing. How these may be employed as message bearers or for the record of events we have abundant illustration in the picture writings of the North American Indian on the bark of trees, or inscribed on rocks, metal and stone.

In the same way, in rude carvings with flint chips on bone and ivory, records of the chase have come down to us from that far off time when paleolythic man hunted the hairy rhinoceros, the mammoth and the hyena in the forests of Europe.

Though hardly attaining the art of writing, pictorial representations in kind were the earliest human attempt in this mode of expression. Later, when pictures became the symbols of ideas, as the picture of a bee to symbolize royalty, of an eye to indicate seeing or knowing, two legs to signify walking or going, or a sparrow for cruelty or inferiority, we reach a higher stage of progression—relics or reminiscences often of the old gesture language, or objects sent as symbols of ideas.

These two first stages in the development of the art of writing are known as ideograms, where signs, symbols or figures suggest the ideas of objects without expressing their names. To construct a sentence in this way with the various parts of speech, is impossible.

The next advance was phonetism, the representation of the sound of words. Thus, the picture of a lion or a camel will be understood whatever the language of the picture-maker may be. Perhaps, also, symbols for things, as the sun for light, or an eye for seeing. “But how,” says Hereen, “can the names of persons, as Henry, Lewis, and the like, be distinguished by symbolic pictures?”

This is true also of many other words without the adoption of signs or characters to represent sound, or the names of things, any adequate expression of facts or ideas is impossible. It thus came about that when pictures of objects or symbols of ideas obtained a fixed and permanent sign for the sound in any language phonetism began.

Among the confusions which appear at this stage are the homophones; relics of that primitive stage in speech, the monosyllabic, when few sounds were used to express many things. As an example in modern English, we have such words as pair, pare and pear; or rite, write, right and wright; words so like in sound, so unlike in meaning.

In our language, these homophones for the greater part are defined by the variant spelling, but as without an alphabet there could be no variant spelling, other devices were necessary to indicate the various meanings of words having the same sound.

Of these ingenious devices, numerous, clever, though cumbrous, yet so essential before letters appeared, more hereafter.

In the meantime, we find the same sound sign thus came to be used for words differing widely in sense and signification. These sound signs were still picture writing. In no sense were they letters or alphabetic characters, but pictures of objects which were used to express sound. This first stage in phonetism is therefore often called by philologists the rebus stage.

A distinct illustration of this method of sound representation is given in the rebus form of the sentence, “I can sail round the globe.” Thus, the pronoun “I” is expressed by the picture of an eye; the verb “can” by the picture of a can; “sail” by the picture of a boat or ship’s sail; “round” by a circle, and the word “globe” by a student’s globe.

In this first stage of phonetism we find that pictures of objects do not represent these special objects as in the purely ideographic stage, but the sound. Again, that writing had reached the point where signs and symbols stand for entire words.

For a monosyllabic language this might suffice. The necessities of a polysyllabic language, however, suggested a further advance. This was to syllabism, the second stage in phonetism, and here signs are used to represent the separate articulations of which words are composed.

In an advanced stage of syllabism not all of the articulations of polysyllabic words were thus represented. Some sign attached to the word as a whole came to be used as the sound value of the initial syllable of the word.

This use of signs for the initial syllable of the word is one of those tricks of abbreviation to which the human mind inclines. It is however scientifically known as an application of the acrologic principle; viz: the use of a sign primarily representing a word to denote its initial syllable, or the initial sound. Thus we have the use of the letters “C” for century; “A. D.” for Anno Domini, and other familiar examples. Also, the signs for the Phœnician words Alph, Beth, Gimel, etc., which came finally to appear as the initial letters of these words.

At the same time we are to remember that at this stage these simple signs are as yet representing syllables. They do not as yet separate the vowels from the attached consonants, denoting both together by a simple sign.

Nor at this stage of writing was there any conception of such a division. The vowel seems to have been regarded as inhering in the consonant. As yet no way had been devised to express the vowel sounds.

We can, however, readily perceive that any attempt to treat pure syllabic signs alphabetically would be impossible. The power of the sign for Ne is not “n;” the sign for Ro is not “r;” Se, Si and Su are not “s;” nor is Tu “t.”

The selection of a number of such signs representing initial syllables of words is termed a syllabary. Its formation occurred when all, or a greater part, of the unions of single consonants with vowel sounds in a language had received each its phonetic and characteristic sign and was thus used independently of any previous signification of the word from which it was derived.

Selections of these signs could be used almost as the alphabet is used to form words. That they were not entirely depended upon by many intelligent nations that possessed a syllabary is one of the curiosities in the history of written speech.

The influence of the syllabaries which developed under different conditions in various languages is an exceedingly interesting study, sometimes so increasing the simplicities of written speech as to nearly approach the powers of the alphabet; again, increasing the extraordinary complexities writing had assumed at the syllabic stage.

Thus these syllabaries have been at once the despair and the illumination of scholars, who, attempting to decipher these unknown characters as letters, could make nothing of them, but when finally recognizing their syllabic values, a wonderful period in the history of letters was revealed.

Syllabic systems, wherever found, are a study of special significance; so nearly alphabetic, yet so remote; always suggesting the greater simplicities to be, and yet so oblivious of these simplicities.

But one step further and alphabetism is at hand. Instead of the use of the sign for the phonetic power of the syllable, the use of this sign for the phonetic power of the letter was all that was necessary.

To many nations such an advance was inconceivable. For this, the conception of the elementary sounds of which words are composed is necessary; the vowels and the consonants, the consonant being the chief power in this development.

It has been suggested that this advance when reached was the result of the prominence of the consonant in the syllable. For instance, the phonetic power of the consonant in the syllables sa, se, si, so, su, is constant while the vowels are variable.

The consonants thus appeared to be the substantial elements of words while the vowels were complementary and inconstant. In this way the sign for the syllable came finally to be the sign for the consonant, with the vowel understood. In confirmation of this we find that the first appearance of alphabetic writing—that is where letters only are used for the formation of words—was consonant writing. The earliest, nearest approach to a pure alphabet, was an alphabet of consonants.

The Semitic languages differ from all other idioms in structure. The original roots of Semitic words are tri-consonantal, consisting of three consonants.

Out of a language so constructed it is easy to understand the development of such an alphabet. The confusions of its use are also manifest. Thus, in the changes of signification of the Semitic root word, k-t-b, signifying “write” we have, when spoken, ka-ta-ba, “he has written,” ku-ta-ba, “it has been written,” ka-ta-bu, “writing,” and ka-tu-bu, “written.” In script, however, whatever the signification, in ancient form we have simply k-t-b with the many meanings supposed to be explained by the context. In early Semitic script there was no notation for vowel sounds, nor did these appear until a comparatively recent date.

From this source, as well as from the similarities which these consonantal signs assumed, have arisen many embarrassments in the translation of Hebrew, and curious evidences in textual criticism.

With the Semitic letters, however, we have reached the first alphabet; not the first appearance of letters, or alphabetic characters, but that stage in the evolution of letters where these were used independently to express words.

At this point, surveying the course from its beginnings, we find the tendencies of progression are, first, simple pictures of objects; again, these simple pictures representing ideas, then as denoting sound or the names of objects, later on as syllabic signs, and finally as letters.

Along this line of progress there are, however, certain curious phenomena which record the historical course of writing as distinctly as do the successive deposits of geological periods.

While the tendency of all systems of writing is from ideographism to alphabetism, not all reached this latter stage; some gradually reached phonetism, where they stopped. Others advanced to syllabism and there remained.

Another singular circumstance is that this progress in phonetism is always without giving up ideographism; that every stage is still picture writing.

Again, we find each stage of progress including previous steps of advance, until at last, as in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, we have the full series of pictures of objects and pictures for sound with a formidable array of determinatives and other special signs and significations. This order of progress has been found so constantly true with all original systems of writing among all races, near and remote, that it may be regarded as a natural, universal law.

VALUABLE COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE OF HIEROGLYPHIC AND HIERATIC FIGURES.

[2]. Herodotus. Melopemene, IV 131-133.

[3]. Confucius states, in the famous historical work, Gih King, that “In great antiquity knotted cords served them (the Chinese) for the administration of affairs; and that later, the saintly Fou Hi replaced these by writing.”

CHAPTER IV.

MANY eminent philologists suggest a time in the history of human speech when language was monosyllabic, when by a few simple utterances human beings were able to express many things, indicating by gesture or tone which of the words having the same sound was the thing expressed.

Later on we find language developed by the connection of two or three of these root words, agglutinated, or stuck together as one word, by which this obtained a broader meaning. This is the first stage in polysyllabism, and is known as the agglutinative stage. Later, human speech passed into the inflectional stage, where these agglutinated words having coalesced or melted into one, became so changed in time by phonetic corruption that finally it becomes impossible to determine which part was the original root and which the modifying element of the earlier stage.

Of the monosyllabic stage in language, the Chinese is a distinguished example. This language is referred to by many eminent philologists as the most primitive in structure of any living tongue. It is a language of monosyllabic roots, limited in number, these roots possessing neither inflections nor parts of speech. Each word is a root and each root is a word, which in turn may be used, according to its place in a sentence, as a verb, a noun, an adjective, a participle, or some other grammatical form.

In speaking, the Chinese express these homophones by varying tones and gestures. In writing, their meaning is ingeniously explained by the use of two characters. One of these is a phonogram, which gives the sound of the word; the other is an ideogram or picture form, that explains which of the words having this sound is the one indicated. These ideograms are styled “keys,” and later on it will be observed are identical with the determinatives of the Assyrian and Egyptian systems. As an instance of the Chinese use of these keys, is the phonogram, ha. This has eight distinct significations. Thus, it may denote a banana tree, a war chariot, a scar, a cry, or any other of its various significations according to the key associated with this phonogram.

Thus this language, possessing but a limited number of root words, is so expanded by the varying combinations of phonetic signs and ideographic characters, that its acquisition for reading or writing is a formidable achievement.

Some of the recent dictionaries of the English language record a vocabulary of two hundred thousand words. To write any or all of these one needs only to learn the twenty-six signs of our alphabet. To write a common business letter, or to read an ordinary book in Chinese, it is necessary that the scribe or student should know familiarly from six to seven thousand of these groups of characters by which to express the forty or fifty thousand words in the vocabulary of the Chinese.

Again, many of these characters are so similar in form that to write them accurately requires intense concentration, and acute powers of memory. Notwithstanding this, China has been a center of culture and intellectual activity from her first appearance upon the stage of history.

From the earliest period, the social and political system of the Chinese has been based upon educational qualifications. All political dignities, honors and preferments, by unalterable law and usage depend upon the educated abilities and scholarship of candidates for office.

The rank of mandarin comes by no hereditary right, nor by favor of a sovereign, but through severe intellectual effort. If in some cases this is obtained through corruption and bribery of some clever scholar who sells his literary privileges to some richer competitor, this does not alter the case; honors still go to scholarship.

It is said of these successful men, the true students, that it would be difficult to parallel them in any country for readiness with the pen and retentive memory. If they are not highly educated, it is due to their false system of educational merit, which consists in an undue exercise of the memory at the expense of the thinking powers. It is also due to the fact that it is a stereotyped system, based upon an ancient usage and custom, concerned with the past and ancient tradition rather than present or future progress.

The early history of this people is specially interesting in the light of recent discoveries. These suggest, and the suggestions are confirmed in the ancient literature of the Chinese, that at a period about B. C. 2500, these people made their first appearance in China from some locality south of the Caspian Sea, in western Asia. This is supposed, from certain historical correspondences, to have been Susiana, and that their emigration was the result of political disturbances occurring throughout western Asia at that date. That, driven from their early home, they wandered eastward, finally settling in the fertile districts of Shansi and Honan, near the Yellow river. About the same time, other families of this people settled to the south in Annim, from whence these kindred people finally spread over all China.

When they first came into the country, they found there aboriginal tribes of various races. In their historical annals the most important of these primitive inhabitants are referred to as the “Kwei people.” It is said of these that they practiced the art of writing and possessed a literature which is referred to by the Chinese as the “Kwei Books,” which included a treatise on music. M. de Lacouperie conjectures these primitive people to be of the Aryan stock, of whom remnants are to be found at the present day in Cambodia.

When the Chinese came into the land they had a culture of their own. They were advanced in the industrial arts and they possessed a system of writing and a literature.

They date the origin of writing with them to a mythical emperor, Hwang-le, who invented the art, selecting for this purpose objects in the air, and on the earth, and in the world around, substituting these representations or symbols of things for the knotted cords then in use.

Modern Chinese writing gives but a faint suggestion of a derivation from ancient pictographs. These, however, can be traced by referring to archaic forms of these characters.

Again, in Chinese words formed by two characters, the one representing the sound, and the other the key which indicates the sound, these two characters are so imposed, the one upon the other, as in a modern monogram, or are so closely associated, that to the uninitiated they appear as one character.

When, however, these characters are separated, they bear often distinct resemblance to objects, and in the archaic forms of these characters their picture origin is distinctly apparent.

Dr. S. W. Williams, in his work “The Middle Kingdom,” Vol. I, has illustrations, showing fine examples of archaic and modern forms of Chinese characters that are in evidence of the pictorial origin of the Chinese system.

The references to the mythical emperor, Hwang-le, who, according to Chinese annals, invented their system of writing, seems to have antedated the appearance of this people in China. In their historical literature, his name is written Nak-hon-ti, and he is so nearly identical in name, character and works to the Susian deity, Nak-hun-ti, that the two are evidently the same. This correspondence suggests the early association of the Chinese with the families of the same race who inhabited Susiana in primitive times, which continue in the names of other heroes common to Accadian legends and the annals of the Chinese.

Again, the accordance of the Chaldean and Chinese chronology in astronomical and other scientific data cannot be regarded as accidental.

Among many remarkable parallelisms in the literature of both races are the astrological chapters of the “She King,” the most ancient of the dynastic histories of the Chinese, and an astrologic chapter in an Accadian document. These have been translated by Professor Sayce, from the cuneiform, who finds constant occurrence of the same expressions in both records relating to particular forecasts, connected with certain planets, as “Soldiers arise,” “Gold is exchanged,” and many others.

Again, the division of the Chinese empire by the Emperor Yaou into twelve portions, governed by twelve “Pastor Princes,” in imitation of the feudal system of ancient Susa, is another evidence of the former association or close contact of these distinct people.

In the literature of the Chinese there is a work for which they claim the highest antiquity. Until recently no clew had been found for its interpretation. This was the “Yih King,” or “Book of Changes,” which has been a sealed mystery to the ablest Chinese scholars of all ages, including Confucius. Its interpretation has, however, been accomplished by M. de Lacouperie who finds this work to be a collection of syllabaries such as are common in Accadian literature. These are interspersed with chapters on astronomical and astrological lore. Others again, refer to the ethnology of primitive inhabitants of the country; all of these, however, taking the form of vocabularies only possible to interpret by recognizing their syllabic character.

The appearance of this work in ancient Chinese literature is explained in two ways. Prof. Douglas regards this as an evidence that in by-gone ages this language was polysyllabic. He points to the fact that certain words indicate a former polysyllabism and from this infers that the language as it now appears is an example of phonetic decay. Others, on the contrary, see in the occasional but rare evidences of agglutination, the influence of contact with other races speaking an agglutinative or polysyllabic tongue, and of which the above example in their ancient literature is perhaps a literary remains.

It is incredible that a race so advanced in polysyllabism as evidenced by the “Yih King,” or “Book of Changes,” could revert to so pure a monosyllabism as is now presented by the Chinese language. Phonetic decay is possible to many words in a language, but so general a reversion to primitive conditions is scarcely possible of a whole language.

Reference has been made in the Chinese system of writing to their use of picture forms or ideographic signs, in association with the phonograms to explain the meaning or particular use of these signs.

This principle, so often referred to, is by no means a special invention of the Chinese, but as we shall see, occurs in all original pictorial systems of writing with the development of phonetism. This is, that when phonetic values begin to attach themselves to the primitive ideographs, these are retained and attached to the signs expressing the primitive sound.

“As if,” says Prof. Sayce, “to assist the memory in remembering the meaning and pronunciation of a particular word.”

In this way evidently the “keys” of the Chinese system had their origin, as also the determinatives of the cuneiform, the hieroglyphic systems of the Egyptians, the Maya or Mexican, and other pictorial systems.

Among the many advantages obtained from a purely syllabic, or purely alphabetic system of writing is the easy adjustment of these signs to various forms of speech. This is eminently true of alphabetic systems. On the other hand the application of non-alphabetic characters to other than the original language to which these were adapted is by no means so simple and manageable in results.

We have seen how the Chinese, by the simple use of the phonogram and the ideogram, were enabled by the structure of their language to retain this form without variation through the ages.

The tendency in polysyllabic languages after reaching the phonetic stage, was to greater complexity and an increase of explanatory signs in systems of writing. Sometimes the transmissions of these primitive systems from one race to another, led to simpler methods.

It, however, not infrequently happened that these transmissions led to greater complexity. This depended somewhat upon the diversity between the languages spoken by the authors of the primitive system of writing and those who adopted it.

While speech and mode of writing are distinct and independent, the one of the other, the influence of language structure in the evolution of graphic systems is conspicuous. Thus a sentence of English speech might be expressed by Chinese characters or Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the Tel Armana tablets, more than one language appears in the cuneiform. We have seen how the so called Hittite characters were found on occasion yielding Greek words, and the use of the Roman alphabet for French, German, Italian and other languages, are every day examples.

The fact however remains, that in the process of the development of primitive systems of writing, before the use of an alphabet, the influence of language structure upon the systems of writing is an important factor in the case.

A curious phenomenon in the history of human speech is the preference shown by certain families of language for special combinations of vowels and consonants. The simplest combination is of a single vowel with a preceding consonant in the formation of syllables. For instance, such words as Ho-no-lu-lu, Mi-ka-do and others.

The Japanese form their syllables only in this way. The same is true of Polynesian dialects and also certain families of language in Africa south of the Equator.

Some distinguished philologists suggest this relation of consonant and vowel as survivals of the original elements of speech; an example, perhaps, in language, of “the line of least resistance.” It is easier to utter sa than as, ta than at, and so on. However this may be, it is a notable fact that certain families of speech form their syllables only in this way.

Again, the Semitic languages are alone in their use of three consonants in the formation of root words; three consonants with their complementary vowels and no more.

Other languages form their syllables with every possible combination of consonants and vowels, some showing a preference for the consonants, others for the vowels, while again others combine their syllables as the case may be, showing no decided preferences for special combinations of vowels and consonants.

These conditions have had their influence on the development of graphic systems. In the simplest combination of a consonant and vowel, as sa, se, si, so, su, if the combining power is only one way and never another, as as, es, is, os, us, the number of syllables that can be formed in such a language are few, and the number of signs to express these are consequently limited. But when the combining power is both ways, the number of possible syllables increases with every increase of these combinations of vowels and consonants, and the number of signs correspondingly.

The transmission of the Chinese system of writing to the Japanese, which occurred about the third century, B. C., indicates this influence of language structure towards simplicity. The Japanese language is polysyllabic. No syllable contains more than one vowel, with a single preceding consonant.

In the adoption by the Japanese of the Chinese characters in the Ka-ta-ka-na syllabary, a certain number of phonograms were selected which would give the sound of the unions of consonants and vowels in the Japanese language. As spoken, this includes five vowels and fifteen consonants. As these combine only in one way there are but seventy-five possible combinations of vowels and consonants in this language. As some of these possible combinations never occur, the use of forty-five of these syllabic signs are all that is necessary to form any word in the Japanese language, with the Ka-ta-ka-na syllabary.

In the formation of this syllabary the ideographic characters of the Chinese system were found unnecessary and were rejected. The result has been one of the best syllabaries that has ever been constructed.

The Japanese have another syllabary, the Hi-ra-ka-na, derived from a cursive script of the Chinese. This syllabary, however, is more complicated, including with the syllabics a greater number of signs as variants, and homophones, in all nearly three hundred; a marked contrast to the simplicity of the other. It is, however, one among the many instances we have in the evolution of letters, where the simpler way seems so easy and evident, but yet is not recognized.

FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK CITY

TRANSLATION OF INSCRIPTION ON ANCIENT EGYPTIAN TABLET

Lines 1 and 2 read in the original from right to left! Below lines 1 and 2 the god Osiris is represented as sitting on his throne, and the inscription of these two lines refers to him. Below lines 8 and 9 we find Amen-neb, the dedicator of the tablet, kneeling, and below line 11 his wife Hûi kneels.

Transcription: (1) Usar heq zeta nuter â (2) suten ânxu (3) mer ârât en Amen Amen-neb zedef (4) anez hirek qa amenti heq nefer (5) neb zeta iu ena xerek (6) seka-ut sûshu (7) nefer-uk duk hotepa (8) em ast ent neheh set hesu (9) amen hâti-a nen ger (10) amef (11) himtef nebt per mertef Hui zed nes.

Translation: (1) [This is] Osiris, the god of eternity, the great god, (2) The King of the living. (3) The chief of the store-house of Amen, Amen-neb says: (4) Hail to thee, ruler [literally: ‘bull’] of the Lower World, gracious god, (5) lord of eternity, let me come before thee, (6) let me extol in praise (7) thy beauty. Give me peace (8) in the abode of eternity, in the country of praise [i. e. Hades] (9) that will hide my heart. There is no de- (10) ceit in it [i. e. the heart]. (11) His wife, mistress of his house, his beloved, Hui, she [also] repeats [this prayer].

CHAPTER V.

THE path of our alphabet seems to be taking us far afield when we turn to Chinese systems of writing and to the origin and development of cuneiform. Nevertheless, it is in this course that some of the richest developments have appeared and the greatest rewards have been obtained by scholars in this special direction of research.

In the narrative given of the decipherment of cuneiform writing reference was made to the three distinct combinations of the arrow-headed or wedge-shaped characters in the trilingual inscriptions at first deciphered.

It was found that these three distinct combinations of cuneiform signs represented three languages of three distinct races of men, the Persian, an Aryan people speaking an inflectional language; the Assyro-Babylonians, Semitic people who spoke a language related to the Hebrew, and the third a Turanian people who spoke an agglutinative language, allied to that of the modern Turks or Finns.

It was some time after the decipherment of the Persian version of the cuneiform texts before these facts became fully understood. The Semitic text presented unusual difficulties, while the language of the other version remained for a time unknown.

The discoveries of Mr. Layard, shortly after, on the site of ancient Nineveh, were to throw more light upon the subject.

With the unearthing of the royal palace of Assur-bani-pal, at Keyunji, the remains of the great library founded by this monarch were discovered beneath the ruins.

These remains consisted of more than twenty thousand bricks, tablets and cylinders, some of which were in fragments, but a greater part entire, and the inscriptions thereon as distinct as when first impressed in the soft clay.

This was a fine, tenacious clay of the region which had been moulded into bricks and cylinders of various sizes, upon which when moist the cuneiform letters had been impressed by a wooden or metal stylus. They had then, for the greater part, been hardened by a slow fire, and were thus made practically indestructible. These cuneiform books were soon distributed in the great libraries and museums of Europe, and thus became accessible to scholars.

Among these literary documents were found a large number which consisted of translations, either interlinear or in parallel passages, from a non-Semitic language into Assyro-Babylonian.

It appeared in two dialects, the speech of the early people of northern Babylonia—the people of Accad—and the speech of the primitive inhabitants of southern Babylonia—the people of Sumir or Shinar.

The close alliance of the peoples of Accad and Sumir in race and language has led to the general application of the name of Accadians to both families. A closer distinction in general terms now adopted by scholars is Sumerian.

Further discoveries rapidly following the unearthing of the Ninevite tablets, confirmed the evidences that these people were the inventors of cuneiform, and that the Sumerian dialect represented the most ancient of the cuneiform scripts.

In the oldest inscriptions which have yet been found the characters are hardly as yet cuneiform. The lines are straight and simple, resembling somewhat the strokes and dashes appearing in words spelled by the electric telegraphic code.

The arrangement of these is pictorial, forming picture hieroglyphics, and these were found to be ideographic and not phonetic.

By degrees the wedge-shaped and arrow-headed characters appear, the pictorial forms are not so distinct and these characters express sound as well as ideas.

The story revealed by these older inscriptions was a genuine surprise to scholars. It not only presented the remoter occupation of Mesopotamia by a hitherto unknown people, but also that while to Mesopotamia is to be accorded the distinction as the “mother land” of the arts and sciences, it was not to its Semitic inhabitants, the Assyrians and Babylonians of history, that this is due.

Here, long before the appearance of a Semitic people in the land, scientific applications to the industrial arts were abundant. An extensive system of irrigation and canals were in use in the arid regions and drainage for the low lands near the sea. The arts of metallurgy were practised. Mathematics and geometry were applied to structures, and astronomy to measurements of time and planetary movements.

They were builders of cities. As we have seen, they had invented a system of writing. In certain cities they had schools for scribes, and they had libraries where the literature thus developed was collected.

When we learn that this testimony takes us back to a date older than the pyramids and to the earlier Egyptian dynasties, we may well exclaim at the astonishing facts archæology is presenting.

Until recently there were no evidences of a civilization in Babylonia which approached the antiquity of Egyptian monuments.

In 1883, Dr. Taylor placed the earliest dates from the cuneiform at between 2700 and 3000, B. C. Recent discoveries, however, refer back to a period, according to Prof. Hilfrecht, at least three milleniums earlier, and point to a civilization distinct and original with the Turanian races of Asia preceding that of other races and people in these regions.

Mesopotamia, “The land between the rivers,” is a tract of country extending about seven hundred miles from its northernmost boundaries, near the mountains of Armenia, to the southernmost limit, the Persian Gulf. A range of hills crosses this region near the center, running east and west, from the Euphrates to the Tigris. North of these hills the country is the ancient Assyria, with its capital, Nineveh, situated on the Tigris. South of these hills to the Persian Gulf, is the ancient Babylonia, or Chaldea, where, on the Euphrates, its later capital, Babylon, was situated.

In the more ancient records Assyria appears as “Accad,” or “Agade;” the southern portion, or Babylonia, as “Sumir,” or the land of “Shinar,” and later as Chaldea.

For the greater portion, this region is a dead level, its monotony unbroken but for the rich verdure of the lands bordering upon these great rivers, and the long lines of slightly elevated embankments marking the course of ancient, or more recent canals, and the solitary mounds rising here and there from the plain.

These are the sites of ancient temples and cities and are sometimes very extensive. The mounds of Warka, the ancient Erech, are nearly six miles in circumference and in some places rise to the height of one hundred feet.

The great mound of Koyunjik covers an area of over one hundred acres in extent, and is ninety-five feet high at its most elevated point. That of Nippur, with the ruins of the great temple of Bel, rose over one hundred feet above the plain. Others are smaller, and sometimes were intended to support but one palace or temple.

These mounds are artificial, their foundations consisting of earth mixed with burned bricks in alternate layers, the whole encased by a wall of bricks cemented with bitumen, or as in Assyria, where stone could be obtained, by a facing of stone masonry.

Upon these artificial hills or mounds, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, from the most remote to later times, built their cities, their palaces, their temples and other important structures.

The heavy rains of the winter season coursing down these declivities for so many centuries, have in places worn deep ravines in the mounds, through which the torrents have carried the crumbling debris far out upon the plain. In this way many valuable relics have come to light; bits of pottery, inscribed bricks, seals and cylinders, the form and style of the inscriptions upon some of these indicating great antiquity.

These indications of greater antiquity include inscriptions on bricks for building purposes as well as those used for record and literature. They include also the form and character of the inscriptions, whether archaic or later cuneiform, and again the use of bitumen or cement in masonry.

In primitive times the first bricks which succeeded the mud wall were sun-dried and were laid up with reeds and plastered with soft mud or bitumen. This bitumen was applied hot and adhered so firmly to the bricks that it is almost impossible to break them apart to obtain the cement and is one cause why the masonry consisting of sun-dried bricks has in many cases withstood the ages. Later the sun-dried bricks came to be used only for interior walls, while for the outer walls bricks were made from selected clay and were carefully prepared and burned, forming bricks of superior quality and strength. So well have these withstood the ravages of time that some of the mounds, notably those of the later Babylonian period, are veritable quarries of building brick.

It is stated that the bricks of which the temples and palaces of Babylon were built, have for the past two thousand years supplied cities of the surrounding region with the material used in the construction of public and private edifices, and that certain families of the Babili tribe, who claim to be direct descendants of the Babylonians, are exclusively employed in quarrying them.

As has been stated, bitumen was used for laying the masonry in the remoter times long before Babylon was built. Of this substance an abundant supply was to be obtained at various places in southern Mesopotamia, near the Arabian desert, notably in the neighborhood of Ur, now Mugheir, “the bitumened,” so called from the bitumenous springs of the vicinity. In time, the use of this for masonry gave place to a fine white mortar made from a peculiar calcareous clay, found near the Arabian frontier to the west of the Euphrates in southern Mesopotamia, which for lightness and strength has never been surpassed.

These evidences, including also the inscriptions originally stamped upon the bricks, with the name of the king or ruler under whose orders they had been prepared, furnish indications of their time and place in history.

It thus came about that explorers following the work of Botta, Layard, George Smith and others, found their way to sites more ancient by many centuries than the beginnings of Nineveh or Babylon, and have obtained from these records of great historical importance.

The more ancient of these sites are in the southern portion of the country, in that region anciently known as Sumir, or Shinar, and later as Chaldea.

This was on the lower courses of the great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, towards the Persian Gulf. This region abounds with the ruins of ancient cities as yet unexplored. The most important of the cities of this region were Eridu, the most ancient and sacred, now marked by the mud heaps of Abu Sharein; the city of Ur, now Mugheir, once a maritime and commercial city of these earlier times, and of special interest as that “Ur of the Chaldees,” the early home of Abraham; Nippur, or Neffur, the seat of older Bel; Tel-Loh, the ancient Sirgulla, and Larsa.

The sites of Ur and Eridu, once near the sea, are now far inland. Eridu, formerly directly upon the shores of the Persian Gulf, is now one hundred and fifty miles distant, while Ur, once situated at the mouth of the Euphrates, is now about one hundred and fifty miles distant from the sea, and about six miles to the west of the present course of the Euphrates on the western banks of the older bed of the river, nearly opposite the point—though six miles away—where the Shat-el-Hic enters the Euphrates from the east, as it approaches from its source in the Tigris.

It is estimated that the alluvium brought down by these great rivers has encroached upon the Persian Gulf by the formation of land about sixty feet annually, creating a delta at the head of the gulf of ninety miles in three thousand years.

These deposits have been more rapid in later times than anciently. The great cause of the difference between ancient and modern Chaldea is the neglect of the water courses. In ancient times, a well arranged system of embankments and irrigating canals held these great rivers in their courses by distributing the superabundant waters of the great flood times to all parts of the country, thus enriching the soil with abundant water supply at all seasons.

In the present neglected condition of this region the floods as they come down from the mountain sources of the Euphrates are liable to wash away the banks, sometimes changing the course of the river, and overflowing large tracts at slightly lower levels, which have become unwholesome marshes, while other large tracts which are never inundated, in the fierce heats become parched and desolate sand wastes. It is said that such is the spread and waste of the Euphrates in its lower course, that, except in flood time, but a small proportion of this great volume of water reaches the sea.

These conditions do not so seriously affect the Tigris, which for the greater part of its course flows over a rocky bed, between high embankments, and which, though a narrower, is a deeper and swifter stream than the Euphrates.

Within historic times, the Tigris and Euphrates entered the sea by separate channels nearly thirty miles apart. At the present time, and for many centuries, these two rivers have been united, forming the great river, the Shat-el-Arab, through which, in a course of about one hundred and twenty miles, their united waters reach the sea.

HIEROGLYPHIC TEXT AND TRANSLATION.

Hieroglyphic Transcription.

A free Translation of the above.

Praise ye Amen-Râ,—the mighty one who dwells in Heliopolis, great above all the gods!—A gracious god is he to those who love him.—His rays of life enlighten—All his grand creation.—Hail to thee, oh Amen-Râ, whose seat is Egypt’s double throne!—Thou art the prince in Southern Thebes,—Grand sovereign in thy realm.—Thou goest through the Southern land,—And nations call thee lord, Arabia calls thee prince.—Thou Ancient One of Heaven, and Oldest One of Earth,—Who didst produce existences and govern things, doest still support creation.—Thou art unchangeable amid the changes of the gods.—Thou art benign, a ruler of the heavenly cycle,—Yea, lord of all the deities,—The prince of truth and sire of the gods.

CHAPTER VI.

THE immense antiquity suggested in the maritime conditions at Ur and Eridu is again emphasized by the astronomical tablets. At this remote date it appears that these ancient Turanian Chaldeans had traced the yearly course of the sun among the stars.

The twelve constellations forming the signs of the zodiac had also been established by them, with the significations which have continued to the present day.

They had divided the year into twelve months, and the first month of their year—which began with the vernal equinox—was named for the constellation, or zodiacal sign, which opened the year.

This was Taurus, whose figure appears in these ancient calendars as leading the months at the beginning of the year. At the time this was prepared the sun was in Taurus at the vernal equinox. About 2500 B. C., the sun entered Aries at this period of the year, while the date when the sun entered Taurus at the vernal equinox was 4700 B. C.

Other evidences from these principal cities of southern Mesopotamia, present, in the remoter times, this land of Sumir as a populous, fertile, well watered and cultivated country.

It was divided into small states, each surrounding a city containing a temple devoted to the service of certain astral divinities, as Ur, the city of the Moon God; or Larsa, with its Temple of the Sun.