ing was originally derived from the hieroglyphic, although the phonetic part of the letter must have been, at the time, considerably developed, because in no other way can the use of generic signs, before the names of persons, countries, rivers, and the like, be accounted for: but that in Mesopotamia, the figure of an object was employed for all its various names, is opposed to all probability. Even among the Egyptians, each figure always retained its distinct phonetic value; and where, as a generic sign, it appears to have lost this property, it was not pronounced. Accordingly, we believe, and think we have proved in the second part of this essay, that, in a large number of arrow-groups, a definite conventional law of formation may be traced. If this discovery is verified, it runs directly counter, it is plain, to that theory. Finally, our distrust of this lawlessness is still more increased by the fact that so many important parts of the Ninevite inscriptions can be deciphered without assigning to the individual cuneiform characters more than one sound, which each has been proved to represent. It will never be possible, however, to escape from the confusion of contradictory statements, except by a rigid separation of the orthography of Assyrian and Babylonian proper names from the orthography of all other names and words. For, in the former, it is not only the wider use of ideographic and determinative signs, which makes the determination of the arrow-groups specially difficult, but still more a singular mode of abbreviation, which, on account of being able to express the longest names by a few strokes, is of very frequent occurrence. This is governed by entirely different laws from those which are observed in writing other words, and reminds one of a rebus or riddle, more than of anything else. In the name of nearly every king of Assyria or Babylon, an example is furnished of the various ways, longer or shorter, in which it was written. The name of Nebuchadnezzar is written Nebikudurruzur, Anakkudiruzur, Anakkudirach, Anpasaduach; that of his father, Nabipaluzur, Anakhaach; that of Sargon, Sargana, Sardu, Mindu. In all these examples, the steps can be traced from the longer to the abbreviated form, VOL. XIV. No. 54. 36 though not, of course, with entire clearness except by inspection of the signs themselves. These abbreviations must have been occasioned by the rule already mentioned, according to which the end of a line must coincide with the end of a word. Hence we find the most extensive employment of these contractions on the brick temples. It must certainly be admitted that sometimes one arrow group is substituted for another which expresses the same idea, but does not represent the same sound; and this it is which has induced Rawlinson to advance his theory and to suppose it to be everywhere verified. But such substitutions would never of course occur either in the orthography of foreign names, or of any other word when the scribe was anxious to make his work intelligible to himself and others. Accordingly, in the Semitic records, the alphabetical apparatus, in particular that which has been obtained from the Behistun inscription, can be applied to the single characters of Assyrian and Babylonian proper names, only when these names are expressed in full, and even then not to all, since into nearly every name generic and ideographic signs are interwoven. This is especially the case with the names of nearly all the Assyrian and Babylonian kings. These are consequently the most difficult to decipher, not only for this reason, but also because into the orthography of the name of a deity, the signs of his attributes and surnames often enter, although they have no connection with the pronunciation of the kings' names.1 From not observing this distinction, and improperly applying the laws which belong only to the contracted forms of these proper names to all words and names, the theory of various sounds for the same sign arose. That this is in fact restriction to the limits just described-if we may speak in query of a polythong of arrow-head groups-is proved by the simple solution of many difficulties, which it has been 1 Thus, the sign for the god Nebo, in the names of Nebuchadnezzar and Nebopolassar, is followed by one which does not represent the pronunciation of the name of the god or the king. So to the god San, in the name of Sanherib (Senacherib), is affixed his surname don or adon. believed could only be solved by the erroneous hypothesis already referred to. It is not surprising, after all this, that the labors of the English scholars in this department have not been favorably regarded in Germany, and the greatest distrust of their translations of the Ninevite inscriptions has been expressed.1 A more careful examination, however, of the processes and results of Rawlinson and Hincks shows, that if England has believed too much, we in Germany have believed too little; and that, while firmly convinced of the impossibility of the wide ambiguity of signs which they maintain, we have reason to rejoice that their researches have already yielded much fruit. From the more than eighty proper names found in the Achaemenian inscriptions, and which, as we have seen, could be easily distinguished, the means of fixing and certainly determining the phonetic value of nearly one hundred arrowhead signs was furnished. With this material it was, of course, possible to determine the sounds of those groups of arrow-heads which were composed of these signs. In this manner the Semitic character of the Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions was discovered, and, though only a part of the words could be connected with known roots, yet a comparison of the same word in various inflections, gave about ten additional determinable signs, which the proper names did not contain. Beyond this point, two difficulties prevented any rapid progress. In the first place, these one hundred and twenty signs were by no means sufficiently numerous to afford the means of deciphering the entire text of the Achaemenian inscriptions and still less of the Ninevite ones. On the other hand, however, variants of the same text, e. g. standard inscriptions, which, like the figures in our carpets, are again and again repeated, in all the halls of a Ninevite palace, have given us the value of many signs before unknown. But great caution is here necessary, and also in availing our ' Comp. Ewald, in the Gött. gel. Anzeigen. 1851. S. 50 ff. selves of the aid offered by the characters in the Tartar translation of the Persian original. That these are borrowed from the Assyro-Babylonian alphabet is not to be doubted; and here and there, their phonetic value is determined more certainly from the Tartar than from the Babylonian text; but, on the other hand, the pronunciation appears often to have been different. The second difficulty, which cannot in all cases be at once overcome, is that of discovering the Semitic roots in the arrow-head form, the phonetic value of which has been decided. First of all we naturally resort to the vocabulary of the Aramæan dialects, although many words are, and will be, found which the dialects have lost, but which are preserved in other Semitic languages. Of the greatest importance, however, are the Semitic portions of two languages, viz. the Armenian and the Pehlevi, the latter of which was probably spoken in Southern Mesopotamia in the time of the Sassanides for the Semitic parts of both languages could have been derived only from the Assyrian and Babylonian dialect. The brief but excellent treatise of Haug,' therefore, on the leading features of the Pehlevi, is a valuable contribution to the helps for the deciphering of the Babylonian-Assyrian. For, if we succeed in finding a root with a fitting signification in the Achaemenian inscriptions, we possess the surest pledge of the correctness of the discovery, if the same root can be discovered in the Pehlevi with the same or a cognate signification. Similar is the relation of the Armenian; but unfortunately its vocabulary has not yet been sifted, with this in view. To these difficulties must be added that which arises from the partial mutilation which the important inscriptions of Behistun and Naksh-i-Rustan has suffered. But happily, again, the same expressions, especially in the Behistun record, are very frequently repeated, so that many groups can be filled out by a careful comparison of different passages. In this manner, a whole series of words and ex 1 Ueber die Pehlevi-Sprache und den Bundehesh. Aus den Gött. gel. An zeigen. Göttingen, 1851. [Also, Spiegel, Grammatik der Huzvâresch-Sprache. Wien, 1856. 8vo. p. 194.-Tr.] pressions, in the third kind of the Achæmenian inscriptions has been perfectly deciphered, and this meaning, though in nearly every instance upon the basis of the Persian original, has been correctly determined. Now the Assyro-Babylonian court-style, which had extended its influence even to the style of composition on the Persian records, was so settled that the Achæmenian inscriptions have not only much, as it respects form and complexion, in common with those at Nineveh of similar import; but even the same phrases frequently occur in both. Especially illustrative of this is the comparison of the black obelisk, already mentioned, with the inscription of Behistun; for, in the former, the builder of the central palace in Nimrud, recounts his exploits in the same words, frequently, with those of Daniel in the latter, several centuries later. more careful comparison, therefore, of both records, may lead to a more certain translation, in many places, of the older writing. A ARTICLE VIII. EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE. We have received the following Notes from a valued literary correspondent: Hebrew Parallelism. The poetic parallelism of members, as a leading characteristic of Hebrew versification, is well known. This form of composition has been thought peculiar to the Shemites. But it has been pointed out in the poetry of the ancient Finns, before their conversion to Christianity. In a poem to Tapio, the god of the woods, we have the following invocation : "O, thou Bee, smallest of birds, Bring me honey from the house of the woods, |