The following Communication has kindly been forwarded. to the Secretary by Professor William Wright, LL.D. :—

DEAR SIR,

PALAZZO BONAparte, Piazza Venezia, Rome,

January 28th, 1882.

I wish to call the attention of your readers to a Hebrew inscription of great antiquity and interest, newly discovered in a Christian mosaic of the fifth century. It has been neither newly excavated, nor recently uncovered, but always exposed to the view of every visitor to Ravenna, remaining all the while entirely unnoticed, although it is wonderfully distinct and well preserved. The mosaic in question forms part of the decoration of the mausoleum of the Empress Galla Placidia, built by her between A.D. 432 and 440. The vaults and walls of this chapel, which is built in the form of a Latin cross, are entirely covered with large mosaic compositions. In the one which adorns the upper end of the cross, and consequently occupies the most prominent position, we see a figure in which most modern critics recognize St. Laurence, although others think that it represents the Christ. But we do not propose to enter into this discussion, nor to describe the mosaic. We will only say that the figure holds in its right hand an open volume, and in its left hand a processional cross, which, leaning on the left shoulder, projects past the head over the right side of the figure. In that part of the upright branch of the cross which is close to the head, and enclosed within the limit of the nimbus, we see distinctly several Hebrew letters, about three centimetres in length. They are formed of white cubes, while those of the cross and nimbus are gilt. These letters form the word Adonai, "Lord," a word considered by Christian interpreters of the O. T. to stand for Christ. The letters are distinct, and in the square alphabet, but two of them do not show all the desired regularity. During the fourteen centuries which have elapsed since its execution, the mosaic must have needed restoration more than once, and it is to this cause that we must attribute these irregularities, which besides may be easily explained if we hold to the probable opinion that the restorers had lost sight of the intrinsic value of the letters, and considered them simply as serving to separate the nimbus from the cross. In the aleph we see that, in order to form a continuous line with the contour of the nimbus, the restorer, making the mistake of placing the nimbus in front of the cross, must have removed some cubes

from the lower part of the diagonal line of the letter, and placed them above, where they are superfluous. In the two following letters, daleth and nun, there is nothing irregular, but the yodh has an unusual form-the perpendicular stroke is lengthened so as to make it resemble a vau. Furthermore, over the nun there is a point which we would recognize as a cholem, were it not almost impossible that the Masoretic vowel-system should have been used at this early time. Its presence is difficult to explain, and I must leave it to learned philologists to decide this point. I would venture, however, to suggest that the vowel-system, as we now have it, was probably not complete from the very beginning, but was of gradual formation. No mention of it is made in S. Jerome, or the Talmud, but at the end of the sixth century the two rival vowel and accent-systems were already complete in the Babylonian and Tiberian Nikkud-books of the Rabbis Acha and Mocha. Before them, however, and a few years also before our mosaic inscription, the first elements of the doctrine of the vowel-points seem to have appeared in the great Nikkud-book of Rabbi Ashe (†426). This movement at the beginning of the fifth century might possibly receive from this inscription an important confirmation.

The first vowel-signs were perhaps those which accompanied consonants not followed by one of the vowel-letters, and those which expressed the scriptio defectiva: the vowel-letters themselves did not need any points. Thus in our inscription neither the aleph nor the nun (on account of being followed by yodh) needed vowel-points, the only essential one being the cholem, which is necessary to express the defective mode of writing, on account of its derivation from It is, besides, probable that the first words whose pronunciation would be minutely determined among the Jews were precisely the divine names. In considering the probability of the presence of vowel-points in inscriptions-a thing which has been thought not to occur until late-it would be also necessary to remember that a mosaic inscription approaches more nearly in character to a MS. than to a cut inscription, and must therefore take quite an exceptional position.

The accompanying fac-simile, reduced from a tracing, will furnish a sure proof of the genuineness of the inscription. Its discovery came about in this way. During last summer a friend of mine, Mr. W. K. Williams, while examining the pho

tograph of this mosaic, felt certain that he discovered in it a

Hebrew inscription; but he did not succeed in reading it, as he had only a slight knowledge of the letters. On his communicating this to me, and showing me the photograph, the first glance at it enabled me to recognize, without doubt, the word Adonai. Consequently, Mr. Williams had an exact coloured tracing made of that part of the mosaic, and last Sunday (22nd January) he read a communication on the subject before the Society of the "Cultori dell' Archeologia Christiana" of Rome, by whom it was most favourably received, and the inscription was accepted without question by the distinguished members of the Society, including Commend. G. B. de Rossi, Padre L. Bruzza, &c. As however he treated the subject from an artistic and archæological point of view, I would here call attention to the linguistic importance of this inscription. Its rarity, and so to speak its unique character, consists in its being the only Christian Hebrew inscription in mosaic, either in the East or West, and probably the earliest known Hebrew inscription of any kind above ground in the West; for there may be others of equal antiquity in the Jewish cemeteries of Italy. It has the great merit of having a known date attached to it, and belongs to a period when, among the Jews themselves, the renaissance of Hebrew in palæography had not yet begun. This is clearly shown, for example, by the inscriptions of the Jewish cemetery of Venosa, the earliest of which, belonging, perhaps, to the fourth and fifth centuries, are in Greek it is only towards the sixth century that we begin to notice purely Hebrew inscriptions.

A. L. FROTHINGHAM, JUN.

Thanks were returned for these communications.

The next meeting of the Society will be held at 9, Conduit Street, Hanover Square, W., on Tuesday, May 2nd, 1882, at 8 p.m., when the following paper will be read :—

REV. A. Löwy." Notes on Glass, according to Ancient Jewish Records."