The career of Phoenician writing in Mesopotamia and the proximate provinces of Western Persia, during the nine centuries and a half intervening between the reigns of Sargon and Ardeshír Bábekán, can only be obscurely traced. We know that the same twenty-two letters, which fulfilled their foreign mission in the creation of the alphabets of Greece and Rome, penetrated but little changed in their normal forms to the pillars of Hercules; while in the opposite direction, under the treatment of the Vedic Aryans, they constituted the basis of an elaborate alphabet of forty-nine signs, the date of whose adaptation is unascertained, but which has now been discovered to have attained full and complete development from Bactria up to the banks of the Jumna, in 250 B.c.1 How the original alphabet matured its literal forms nearer home we are not in a condition to determine; there is little doubt but that Cuneiform writing on its part maintained its position in official and commercial documents for a far longer period than might have been anticipated, but whether this extended vitality was due to the improved intelligence of professional scribes, to its superior accuracy of definition as compared with the limited scope of Phoenician,3 or to the more material question of the cheapnesss and durability of the clay, whose surface, on the

1 Prinsep's Essays, ii. 114; Journ. R. A. S. vol. i. N.S. p. 468; Numismatic Chronicle, vol. iii. N.S. (1863) pp. 229, 235, “ Bactrian Alphabet."

2 M. de Vogüé has given us a comprehensive résumé of the progress of Phoenician writing to the westward, which I quote in his own words:"1. Antérieurement au VIe siècle, l'alphabet commun à toutes les populations sémitiques de la Syrie est l' alphabet phénicien archaïque, souche de l'écriture grecque et de tous les systèmes graphiques de l'occident. 2. Vers le VIe siècle, l'écriture phénicienne type, celle que j'ai appelée Sidonienne, se constitue définitivement: le plus beau monument de cette écriture est le célèbre sarcophage d' Esmunazar; en même temps la branche araméenne se sépare de la souche commune. Le caractère principal de ce nouvel alphabet est l'ouverture des boucles des lettres beth, daleth, ain, resch. Mais pendant deux siècles environ, à côté de ces formes nouvelles se maintient un certain nombre de formes anciennes ; l'altération de toutes les lettres n'est pas simultanée, de sorte que l'alphabet conserve un caractère mixte qui m'a conduit à lui donner le nom d' Araméo-Phénicien. Le meilleur exemple de cette écriture est l'inscription du Lion d' Abydos. 3. Vers la fin du V. siècle, l'alphabet araméen se constitue définitivement sur les pierres gravées, sur les médailles des satrapes de l'Asie mineure." Rev. Arch. ix. (1864), p. 204.

3 M. Oppert makes some interesting remarks upon this subject; among the rest, "L'épigraphie assyrienne, d'ailleurs, malgré les complications inhérentes à l'écriture anarienne, a un avantage précieux sur l'épigraphie des autres peuples sémitiques. Les mots y sont séparés et les voyelles sont exprimés, ce qui constitue un avantage encore plus important pour l'interprète des textes."-Journal Asiatique, 1863, p. 478.

other hand, was so eminently unfitted for the reception of the curved lines of the latter, we need not now stop to enquire.

Many incidental examples of the local Phœnico-Babylonian of various epochs are to be found associated with the concurrent Cuneiform on the clay tablets described by Sir H. Rawlinson (B.c. 700–500).1

Towards the westward the Persian Satraps of the Achæmenidæ employed the indigenous Phoenician, and anonymous Darics, presumably of the Great king, bear upon their surfaces the word in similar characters.3

But the earliest occasion upon which we can detect a tendency towards the identities and characteristics subsequently developed in the Chaldæo-Pehlvi is upon the coinage of Artaxias of Armenia, B.C. 189.4 In this instance the letters 1, 2, ', D, and

notably depart from the style of the Phoenician of Sargon, and seem to have already assumed a near approach to the forms ultimately accepted as conventional in the alphabet reproduced in the woodcuts (p. 25). The peculiarities of this type of writing may afterwards be traced through the ArmenoParthian coinages,5 and irregularly on the Imperial Parthian mintages, both in silver and copper, dating from 113 A.D. up to the close of the dynasty. These, with the casual appearance of some of the more marked Chaldæo-Pehlvi forms on the dubiously-classed money of Characene," added to the odd juxtaposition of some of their special symbols with the local writing on the Kermán coins of Kodes (Kobád), complete the list of examples at present known.

6

Of the fellow or Sassanian-Pehlvi alphabet no writing whatever has as yet been discovered prior to Ardeshír Bábekán,

1 Journ. R. A. S. (new series), vol. i. pp. 187, 244.

2 M. de Luynes "Essai sur la Numismatique des Satrapies et de la Phénicie. Paris, 1846.

3 Gesenius, Pl. 36, fig. c.; Mionnet, Nos. 35, 36. Trésor de Numismatique, Pl. lxvi. figs. 1, 2.

4 Numismatic Chronicle, xviii. 143; vol. vi. N.S. p. 245, and vii. 237.

5 Numismatic Chronicle, vol. vi. N.S. 1866, note, p. 245.

6 Numismatic Chronicle, xii. 68; xvii. 164; Lindsay, Coinage of Parthia, pl. iv. figs. 87, 89, 90, 93-96.

"Prinsep's Essays, i. 32.

8 Numismatic Chronicle, iv. p. 220. (A new coin in the possession of General

.(גואת Cunningham gives the local name in full

4

with the exception of isolated letters, probably referring to local mints occasionally to be met with on the field of some of the Drachmas of the Parthians.1

The differences between the rival alphabets we are more immediately concerned with, will be seen to be rather constructive than fundamental; one leading theory evidently regulated the contrasted forms of the letters in each, the eventual divarications of the two systems, as in so many parallel cases, being due to the fortuitously most suitable and readily available material for the reception of the writing, which so often determined the ultimate method of graphic definition. The seemingly more archaic structure of the Chaldæo-Pehlvi clearly carried with it the reminiscence of Babylonian teachings, in which the formation of the letters was largely influenced by the obvious facilities of delineation. The ancient scribes of the Assyrian sculptures are represented as making use of a reed, or other description of pen, with which they wrote upon a flexible leather or parchment scroll, employing the indicator or, possibly, the first and second fingers of the left hand, to support the material at the point of contact of the pen in the ordinary line of writing; under these conditions the most obvious tendency would be towards down strokes, and thus it is found that almost every letter of Sargon's Phoenician consists primarily of a more or less perpendicular line, the minor discriminations being effected by side strokes more varied in construction but of less thickness and prominence; as time went on, the practice developed itself of forming as many letters as possible after one and the same process of manipulation, the essential difference between the characters being marked by scarcely perceptible variations in the leading design; hence arose the perplexing result of the general sameness and uniformity, and consequent difficulty of recognition of the imperfectly contrasted letters so marked in Chaldæo-Pehlvi, and still so troublesome in modern Hebrew.

The course followed by the pen in the Chaldæo-Pehlvi

1 Parthian coin of Sanabares, dated 313 (A.D. 2), in the British Museum, with a Parthian Ds and a Sassaniana on the obverse field. See also Numismatic Chronicle, xvii. 169; Lindsay, pl. xi. Arsaces XXX.

J.

caligraphy was singularly repetitive, starting from a given point at the top of the line of writing, it proceeded slightly downwards with a backward sweep, more or less prolonged; from this angle the characteristic perpendicular curve commenced, to be supplemented by the concluding turn of the pen which so often constituted the effective definition of the value of the letter. This formation is followed in the letters ,,, and less obviously in . The letters, D, and commence with similar leading lines, but have discriminating marks added by a second application of the pen; in like manner is distinguished from by a separate foot crescent, a sign which finds its parallel in the dot of the Syriac ?. The remaining letters also had much in common, but in these instances the initial point of the character was thrown slightly backwards on the head-line of the writing, and the down-stroke proceeded more abruptly, finishing with a minute and nearly uniform curve to the left; under this heading may be classed the simple forms and †, and the combined outlines, n,, (),, and ". Even the letter probably consisted originally of an inclined duplication of the ', with a prolonged foot-line connecting the two down-strokes. The single exception to the descending curves is afforded by the letter, which must be supposed to have been constructed like the upward arch of the associate, which in the Syriac waw grew into a round o, the Chaldæo-Pehlvi form of which, passing through the Sassanian 2, finally settled itself into the Arabic,.

The variation in the configuration of the letters of the Sassanian Pehlvi, as compared with its fellow alphabet of more determined Semitic aspect, may be attributed to the simple action of a different method of manipulation, involving a less restrained movement of the hand, and greater freedom in the onward or backward sweep of the pen than was compatible with the conventional restrictions of the caligraphy of Western Asia. There is every reason to believe that the ancient races to the east of the Tigris, in common with the partially civilized populations ranging over Central Asia and the Himalayas, very early in the world's history, appreciated

the utility of birch-bark, and, even in the infancy of letters,1 its applicability to the purposes of writing would readily have suggested itself. At all events, we have direct and independent evidence of its use in Afghánistan some centuries B.C., and we can cite very credible and unconstrained testimony to the fact that much of the sacred literature of the Ancient Persians was engrossed upon this substance,3 con

2

1 To show how forms of writing in early times must have been determined by circumstances and accessible materials, it may be noted that even so late as the days of Muhammad, when there were civilized teachers from the many nations around them, the Arabs had still to engross the stray sayings of their Prophet upon stones and other strange and readily available substances. Sir Wm. Muir tells us, "after each passage was recited by Muhammad before the Companions or followers who happened to be present, it was generally committed to writing by some one amongst them upon palm-leaves, leather, stones, or such other rude material as conveniently came to hand." Life of Mahomet. London, 1861. Vol. i. p. iii.-Dr. Sprenger, in his Life of the Prophet (German edit. Berlin, 1865, iii. p. xxxix.), enumerates leather and parchment, slate, palm-leaves, camel's shoulder-blades. Said's copy was written on leaves of palm or on scrolls and papyrus.

2 H. H. Wilson. Ariana Antiqua, pp. 59, 60, 83, 84, 94, 106-7, 111.

3 I am quite aware that tradition affirms that the substance employed was 12,000 "Cow-skins" or parchments (Masaudi, French edition, ii. p. 125. Hyde de relig. vet. Persar. 318), which might be understood as perfectly consistent with all the probabilities if it were admitted that, of the two copies of the sacred books mentioned in the subjoined extract from the Dinkard, the one deposited at Persepolis and the other at Ispahán, that the former was written in the ChaldæoPehlvi on skins, and the latter in the corresponding alphabet on birch-bark.

The following passages from the Dínkard, lately published by Dr. Haug, relating to the original collection, destruction, and subsequent attempts at the recovery of the sacred writings of the Zoroastrians are of sufficient interest, both historically and geographically, to claim a notice in this place. This portion of the Pehlvi text is admitted to have been added and incorporated only on the final rearrangement of the scattered materials of the ancient books. Nor does Dr. Haug himself seem quite satisfied with his own interpretation, which, considering the degraded character of the text, is scarcely to be wondered at.

1. "The book Dínkard' is a book on the religion, that people may obtain (a knowledge of) the good religion. The book' Dinkard' has been compiled from all the knowledge acquired (to be) a publication of the Mazdayasnian (Zoroastrian) religion. 2. It was at first made by the first disciples of the prophet Zertosht Sapetmen. . . 3. The excellent king Kai Vishtasp ordered to write down the information on each subject, according to the original information, embracing the original questions and answers, and deposited them, from the first to the last, in the treasury of Shaspigán ("Pasargadæ," Haug). He also issued orders to spread copies (of the original). 4. Of these he sent afterwards one to the castle (where) written documents (were preserved), that the knowledge might be kept there. 5. During the destruction of the Iranian town (Persepolis. The dazhu-i-nipisht is supposed to have been the library of that metropolis—Haug) by the unlucky robber Alexander [] after it had come into his possession, that (copy which was) in the castle (where) written documents (were kept) was burnt. The other which was in the treasury of Shashpígán fell into the

یوتنا یک] Greeks. From it a Grecian) ارومایان] hands of the Romans

1 او تاشتر مرکا ان مرکاپاپکان] Ardeshir Babekan, the king of kings

translation was made that the sayings of antiquity might become known. 6.7.