London, 1854. Grotefend, "Erläuter. zweier Ausschr. Nebukadnezar's in babyl. Keilschr.," Göttingen, 1854. Hincks, "On Assyrian Verbs," in Journ. of Sacred Literature, 1855-56 (extremely valuable, the foundation of an Assyrian grammar). J. Brandis, "Ueber d. histor. Gewinn aus d. Entziffer. der Assyr. Inschriften," Berlin, 1856 (he had already published, in 1853, "Rerum Assyriarum tempora emendata," Bonn). Fox Talbot, "On Assyrian Inscriptions," in Journ. of Sacred Lit., 1856. M. von Niebuhr, "Geschichte Assur's u. Babel's seit Phul," Berlin, 1857. Rawlinson, Fox Talbot, Hincks, and Oppert, "Inser. of Tiglath-Pileser I. transl.," 1857. J. Oppert, in Journ. Asiat., v., tom. 9, 10, 1857-8. J. Ménant, "Inscriptions Assyriennes des briques de Babylone (Essai de lecture et d'interprétation)," Paris, 1859; "Notice sur les Inscriptions en caractères cun. de la collection epigraphique de M. Lothoi de Laval," Paris, 1859. Hincks, "Babylon and its Priestkings," in Journ. of Sacred Lit., 1859. Fox Talbot, "Annals of Essar-Haddon," in same, 1859. Oppert, "Eléments de la Grammaire Assyr.," Paris, 1860 (first attempt to form a full grammar; very useful to the student). Ménant, "Recueil des Alphabets pour servir à la lecture et l'interprétation des écritures cun.," Paris, 1860. Hincks, “Arioch and Belshazzar," in Journ. of Sac. Lit., 1861. Rawlinson and Norris, "The Cun. Inscr. of Western Asia," vols. i., ii., iii., London, 1861, 66, 70 (lithographed for the Brit. Mus.). Ménant, "Les Noms propres Ass.," Paris, 1861; "Principes élémentaires. de la lecture des Textes Ass.," Paris, 1861; "Sur les Inscr. Assyr. du Brit. Mus.," 1862-3. G. Rawlinson, "Herodotus," vol. i., London, 1858 (contains valuable essays by his brother)

"The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World," vol. i., London, 1862. Hincks, "The Polyphony of the Assyrio-Babylonian Cun. Writing" (reprinted from the Atlantis), 1863 (valuable). Oppert, "Expédition scientifique en Mésopotamie," vols. i., ii., 1863. Ménant, "Inscr. Assyr. de Hammourabi," Caen, 1863. Oppert and Ménant, "Les Fastes de Sargon" (trad.), Paris, 1863 (important to the historian; a commentary and vocabulary are added); "Grande Inscription de Khorsabad, publ. et comment.," two vols., Paris, 1865. Ménant, "Eléments d'Epigraphie Assyr.," second edit., Caen, 1864 (first edit. 1860). J. Olshausen, "Prüfung des Charakters d. in d. Assyr. Keilinschriften enthaltenen semit. Sprache," in the Abhdl. d. Kön. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin, 1864 (valuable attempt at a comparison of Assyrian with the cognate languages; Oppert's grammar criticized). Rawlinson, in the Journ. R.A.S. 1864 (on the bilingual, Ass. and Phoenician inscriptions). Ménant, "Inscr. des revers des plaques du Palais de Khorsabad trad.," Paris, 1865. Hincks, "On the Assyrio-Babylonian Measures of Time," 1865; "Specimen Chapters of an Assyr. Grammar," in Journ. R. A. S., 1866 (the most important contribution to Assyrian Grammar yet made). E. Norris, "Specimen of an Assyrian Dictionary," J.R.A.S., 1866. Fox Talbot, "Assyrian Vocabulary," in J.R.A.S., 1867-9 (full of unscientific comparisons). Ménant, "Exposé des éléments de la grammaire Assyrienne," Paris, 1868 (Oppert's first edition enlarged; inaccurate and incomplete). Oppert, "Grammaire Assyrienne," second edit., Paris, 1868 (very good and useful, but disfigured by the theory of a stat. emphat. and an incomplete theory of the verb). Norris, "Assyrian Dict.," vols. i., ii.,

1868, 70 (useful, but premature; has not as yet advanced further than in the nouns). D. Haigh, G. Smith, Oppert, and Lenormant, in the Zeitschrift für Aegyptische Sprache, 1868-70 (mostly on Assyrian history; the question of the canon reviewed by Lepsius in the Abhdl. d. Berl. Akad., 1870). Lenormant, in the Rev. Archéologique, 1869. G. Smith, in the North British Review, 1869-70 (especially an important paper on "Assyrian and Bab. Libraries"). E. Schrader, in the Zeitschr. d. D. Morgenl. Gesellsch., xxiii., 1869 (proof of the decipherment and its results); also pp. 82-5 in his edition of De Wette's "Lehrbuch," Berlin, 1869. Ménant, "Le Syllabaire Assyrienne" (useful, but too long and incomplete). A. Sayce, in the Journal of Philology, 1870 (attempt to form an Accadian grammar). Renan, in Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 1869, "Sur les formes du verbe Sémit." (Assyrian grammar compared with those of the cognate languages). M. A. Harkavy, Revue Israélite, 1870, Nos. 2, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14. G. Smith, "History of Assur-bani-pal," 1871 (cuneiform texts, translated); "Phonetic Values of the Cuneiform Characters," and "Chronology of the reign of Sennacherib," 1871. Lenormant, "Lettres Assyriologiques" (on Media and Armenia), 1871. Criticism of the interpretations (more or less favourable). Ewald, in the Götting. Gel. Anz., 1857, 58, 59, 60, 68. Renan, in Journ. des Savants, 1859. F. Hitzig, "Sprache u Sprachen Assyriens," (attempt to compare Assyrian with Sanskrit by rejecting polyphons!) Leipzig, 1871. Ch. Schöbel, "Examen critique du déchiffrement des inscr. cun. Assyr.," Paris, 1861. Assyrian used for comparative purposes in Rödiger's Gesenius' Heb. Gram., 20th edit., 1869. Ewald,

"Abhandlung über d. geschichtliche folge d. Semitischen Sprachen," Gött., 1871 (Assyrian is placed in the same (second) stage of development of Semitic speech as Æthiopic). We may be allowed to refer to the dreams of Dorow ("Die Assyr. Keilschrift erläut. durch 2 Jaspis-Cylinder aus Nineveh u. Bab.," Wiesb., 1820), W. Drummond (Classical Journ., 1812), C. Forster ("One Primæval Language," 1856), and Comte de Gobineau ("Traité des Écritures cun." two vols., Paris, 1864; "Lect. des textes cun.," Paris, 1859).

PHONOLOGY.

The syllabary, as we have seen, was of non-Semitic origin, and primitively hieroglyphic. Its inventors spoke a variety of Turanian idioms, and inhabited the lowlands of Chaldæa. Every character was an ideograph, denoting some object or notion, sometimes more than one, as in Egyptian and Chinese. Different sounds, consequently, were attached to the same character, either because the object or idea admitted of different names, or because the various tribes of Chaldæa did not always agree in their vocabulary. When these characters came to be used phonetically, polyphony was the necessary result. The Assyrians adopted the system of writing, along with the science and mythology, of their predecessors. When space was an object, the characters were used ideographically, and this was generally pointed out by the addition of the (Semitic) grammatical termination. Thus ideographs came to take the place of the Hebrew literæ dilatabiles. Ordinarily, however, the words were spelled out phonetically in this case, the sounds attached to the characters by the Accadians, which had ceased

to have any meaning for people who spoke another language, were employed as phonetic values. As these sounds (words once, but now replaced by Semitic roots if the characters were used ideographically) were manifold, almost every character had at least more than one power attached to it. This would seem to introduce an element of confusion into the orthography; but such is not the case. The different powers were used in accordance with rule-the Assyrian writing was to be read, not puzzled out-and it is but seldom that the transliteration is doubtful. Homophones are rare. Owing to the hieroglyphic origin of the writing, the number of characters is very large, almost every possible combination of two or three letters (one being a vowel) being found.1 Many are of rare occurrence, some are only to be met with in the syllabaries. Were these perfect, this part of the subject would be complete. A syllabary, generally, sets the character to be explained in the second of three parallel columns; the first column representing the Accadian word (a mere phonetic sound in Assyrian), and the third the Assyrian root, which translated the Accadian of the first column and was the pronunciation when the character was employed as an ideograph. Thus we have a character, whose usual value is is, explained i-si in the first column, sa-du-‘u ("mountain ") in the third: then in the next line the same character with a-khar in the first column, ip-ru ("dust") in the third. Again, a character, whose ordinary power is mi, is given thrice following as mi-e in the first column, successively translated ku-lu ("assembly"), ka-a-lu ("assemble") and tam-tsu ("weight") in the third;

1 Mr. G. Smith gives 389 in his "Syllabary," about 200 being compounds, but he has not given all the characters that are found.