that some signs were susceptible of many values and many sounds. This certainly seemed a strange state of things. On examining the group of symbols which should contain the name of Nabuchodonosor, according to the reading of the Persian and Scythic columns, the group presented these sounds, AN, PA, SA, DU, SIS. Hence the necessity for concluding that certain groups of signs form complex ideograms, and that these signs lent to ideographic expressions pronunciations different from those which they had under other circumstances. It is upon this point principally that Assyrian scholars and their opponents join issue. The latter refuse to swallow such a bitter pill, and will hear no more of any translations from the cuneiform character, in which such a strange course is necessitated. And yet nothing is easier than to explain this apparently singular phenomenon. When the Semites received from another people the character which represented a house for instance, they at the same time received the sound val applied to this character in the idiom of the inventors of the symbols, val being their word for house. But instead of this sound of val, the Semites gave to the sign the sound bit, which in Assyrian signified house. Hence the sign derived from the figure of a house has the two syllabic values, val or mal and bit. In like manner we have borrowed &, a contracted form of et, from the Latin, but we always pronounce it and in English. Now the case would be exactly parallel to what takes place in Assyrian, if in English the sign & were used not merely for the word and, but also for the two letters et where they occur together.

In 1852 Dr. Hincks published his memoir On the Assyrio-Babylonian Phonetic Characters, justifying the conclusions already formed. M. de Sauley almost despaired at the curious turn the whole subject was taking. Meanwhile Mr. Layard published the results of his second journey. Still the opponents of this system of deciphering were not at all convinced. Such a state of things could not continue long. It was absolutely necessary that something more satisfactory should be done to quiet the straining minds of the public; and accordingly, in March 1857, Mr. Fox Talbot sent to the Royal Asiatic Society, in a sealed packet, a translation of a cuneiform inscription found on a cylinder. It was the first of those lithographed by authority of the Trustees of the British Museum. In doing this his wish was that Sir H. Rawlinson and Dr. Hincks should also translate the same inscription separately, and without any communication with each other, in order to show that practically, and considering the newness of the study, 66 there was a fair amount of agreement between different interpreters in their versions of the Assyrian historical writings of average difficulty." He thus expresses the objections raised:

แ Many persons have hitherto refused to believe in the truth of the system by which Dr. Hincks and Sir H. Rawlinson have interpreted the Assyrian writings, because it contains many things entirely contrary to their preconceived opinions. For example, each cuneiform group represents a syllable, but not always the same syllable; some

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times one and sometimes another. To which it is replied, that such a license would throw open the door to all manner of uncertainty; that the ancient Assyrians themselves, the natives of the country, could never have read such a kind of writing, and that therefore the system cannot be true, and the interpretations based upon it must be fallacious." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xviii. p. 160.

To the three translators already named Dr. Oppert was added; and a committee appointed to examine and report upon the translations, consisting of the Very Rev. the Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. Whewell, Sir Gardner Wilkinson, Mr. Grote, the Rev. W. Cureton, and Professor H. H. Wilson. Their report was given in on May 29th, and contains this passage: "Having gone through this comparison, the examiners certify that the coincidences between the translations, both as to the general sense and verbal rendering, are very remarkable." The first sentences of paragraph the sixth (i. 89) are thus translated:

Nevertheless even the results of this experiment did not satisfy all parties.

M. Oppert continued his labours. In 1857 he sent out the text, translation, and commentary of the Borsippa inscription, which, according to him, contains distinct mention of the building of the Tower of Babel, and the confusion of tongues caused thereby. At this time another name was added to the small number of Assyrian scholars in the person of M. Ménant; and it is probable that the list will soon contain other names, now that Sir H. Rawlinson and Mr. E. Norris, deputed by the authorities of the British Museum, have sent out two folio volumes of Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, many of which have now been translated. These volumes consist, the first of seventy

large lithographed plates of inscriptions, ranging from the brief legends on the bricks of the earliest Chaldean kings, which cannot be placed lower than 2000 years B.C., to the genuine edicts of the first Assyrian monarchs, and thenceforward in a continued series to those of the successors of Nabuchodonosor. More than sixty of these are strictly historical; they record the warlike expeditions and the architectural achievements of the princes of Nineveh and Babylon for eight centuries. The second volume contains nearly three hundred explanatory lists and vocabularies, which greatly facilitate the study of the inscriptions.

We come now to speak of the scientific expedition into Mesopotamia, undertaken at the desire of the French Government in 1851, by MM. Fulgence Fresnel, Félix Thomas, and Jules Oppert, the results of which have been made known to the public by the last-named gentleman. The first volume of the work contains a relation of the journey, with a short account of the principal objects of archæological interest in the various places they visited,-Malta, Alexandria, Beyrout, Baalbek, Nahr-el-Kelb, Alexandretta, Aleppo, Diarbekr, Severek, Gesireh, Nisibin, Mosul, Bagdad, Ctesiphon, Seleucia, Babylon, and Nineveh.

M. Oppert enters into a few interesting details regarding the Jews of Bagdad. They are tolerably well instructed; many speak ancient Hebrew with a melodious pronunciation, which he thinks approaches. the original sound. They ignore the dagesh lene; they pronounce vau like the English w, and ain like the corresponding Arabic letter; in fact, all Orientals avoid the disagreeable and absurd sound given to this letter by the Portuguese Jews. The commerce of the city is in their hands. There is a saying in Bagdad, that it takes two Jews to cheat a Greek, two Greeks to cheat an Armenian, and two Armenians to cheat a Persian. The English Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews has not neglected Bagdad. Its missionaries are recruited from among Polish Jews, with whom baptism is a last resource. The two missionaries at Bagdad had succeeded in making one proselyte in ten years; but even this one went to the synagogue on Saturdays. Their position is any thing but enviable. Babylon and Nineveh, together with their environs, are of course described at great length, every interesting ruin here finding its place, and the ancient inscriptions connected with the spots visited being translated. The objects discovered in the numerous excavations they made were abundant and of the greatest importance. Bricks and inscriptions, finelyconstructed cylinders, statues, various objects both in silver and gold, cinerary urns, glasses of all sizes, apparently of Phenician make, alabaster vases, painted vases, combs, mirrors, ivory styles with which the cuneiform letters were formed in the clay, and many other curiosities, were the reward of their two years' search. Unfortunately, on the 23d of May 1855, sixty-eight cases of these curiosities were swallowed up in the waters of the Tigris.

The second volume of this admirable work is devoted to the deciphering of inscriptions. A concise history of the study is given, and

the basis of investigation laid down. From the discoveries of Mr. Layard it is shown that the Assyrians themselves found a difficulty in reading this form of writing. Sardanapalus V. (660-647 B.C.) had a number of clay tablets constructed to facilitate the reading. He had them inscribed with signs, which he marked with their respective significations. Many of them have been discovered. One in the British Museum (K. 39) contains the following record:

"The palace of Sardanapalus, king of the earth, king of Assyria, to whom the god Nebo and the goddess of instruction [or the goddess Tasmil] have given ears to hear, and whose eyes they have opened to see, which is the foundation of government. They have revealed to the kings, my predecessors, this cuneiform writing. The manifestation of the god Nebo, . . . . of the god of supreme intelligence, I have written upon tablets, I have signed it, I have arranged it, I have placed it in the midst of my palace for the instruction of my subjects."

These so-called syllabaria are a sort of vocabulary or dictionary of the language, and are arranged in three columns. The middle column exhibits the sign which is to be explained; that on the left generally gives the syllabic signification expressed in simple characters, and that on the right the ideographic value expressed in the corresponding Assyrian word. Specimens of these syllabaria are given in M. Oppert's work, and also in the British Museum series of cuneiform inscriptions edited by Sir H. Rawlinson and Mr. E. Norris, of which we have already spoken. Fragments of grammars in two languages have also been found.

We have then inscriptions in Babylonian, Assyrian, Armenian, Scythian, and Persian, all the letters of which can be traced to one source. From the syllabic values attached to the letters, it seems clear that that source is not Semitic, but Finno-Uralian or Turanian. It is quite possible that the ancient Chaldeans may claim the merit of invention; for, as Mr. George Rawlinson has shown, this people was of Hamitic or Turanian origin.

M. Oppert examines the archaic form of letter, and traces it to the hieroglyphic. He then analyses grammatically and philologically a great number of texts, acknowledging difficulties where he finds them, and ready to listen to suggestions from others. He wishes nothing more than unprejudiced examination of his labours and impartial criticism. He has given copies and translations, in whole or in part, of the important inscriptions of Xerxes, Darius, Artaxerxes, Nabuchodonosor, Neriglissor, Nabonidus, Naramsin, Sargon, Sardanapalus V., and many others. We cannot speak too highly of this work; it is the best and the most complete on cuneiform inscriptions which we have yet seen. Commenced in 1856 at the request of M. Achille Fould, minister of state, and continued under the auspices of the Imperial government, it was only completed in 1863. To the student of this subject it is invaluable; and M. Oppert's place among cuneiform scholars is now fairly admitted to rank very high.

Among other contributions of this eminent scholar to the study to

which he now seems to have entirely devoted himself, we must not omit mention of his Eléments de la Grammaire Assyrienne, where he has collected into a grammatical form, and printed in Hebrew letters, the condensed results of his many years of labour.

In 1863, uniting his efforts to those of M. Ménant, he published Les Fastes de Sargon, Roi d'Assyrie, with text and translation; and in the same year he edited a philological commentary on the same inscription. These first appeared in the Journal Asiatique, but were afterwards published separately for the benefit of students.

In the same year appeared Inscriptions de Hammourabi, Roi de Babylone (xvi siècle avant J. C.), with text, translation, and commentary, by M. Ménant. In this work the editor pronounces himself in favour of the Semitic, not Hamitic, descent of the ancient inhabitants of Chaldea, for at least 2000 years before Christ. Sir H. Rawlinson, on the other hand, maintains, that about 2500 B.C. the primitive population which inhabited the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, and which was of the Semitic family, was displaced in Babylonia by Turanian tribes from the Persian mountains. Co-existent with this Turanian empire in Babylonia there was an independent Semitic empire in Babylonia in the earliest times; and a Turanian dialect continued to be the prevailing language in Babylonia down to the age of Nabuchodonosor, or even later.

In 1860-1863 Mr. Fox Talbot published several translations of Assyrian inscriptions in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, but unaccompanied by a copy of the text.

It may be well to mention here an important document brought to light in a fragmentary form by Dr. Hincks in 1854, and afterwards reduced to form by Sir H. Rawlinson in 1862. This document, or rather these fragments of documents, contain an Assyrian chronological canon -that is to say, a list extending over a period of 264 years, of annual functionaries, archons, or eponymes, who gave their names to the Assyrian year. It is the most valuable contribution towards the recovery of ancient Asiatic chronology which has been made since the time when Selden deciphered and published the contents of the Parian chronicle, in the reign of Charles I. This discovery has given great confidence to cuneiform students.

So far we have followed the labours of those scholars, who, seeing a language in these strange signs, zealously set themselves to the task of deciphering them. As we have before remarked, 250 years have elapsed since the attention of Europeans was called to them; and all that has been accomplished in the way of rigorous and scientific analysis has been done within the present century, we may almost say within the last thirty years. As long, indeed, as the study of comparative philology was neglected, it was impossible to advance one step in the matter. Now, certainly, much, as we have seen, has been performed; but much yet remains to be done. We have followed with great and increasing interest the gradual progress made by M. Oppert and Sir H. Rawlinson;