such repetitions occur here in every page, as ",

,גאיי

"a Levite," ", "a place;", "namely, Judas Iscariot" (John xii. 3); 1, [he] "went to

wards Jericho." In its medial duplicate form it occurs in 78 77, “in the law of Moses" (Luke xxiv. 44); but

בגוייד מינמאיי its most frequent appearance is in verbs, as

", etc., where the introductory y is absolute. The kasrah form of the short i is expressed by the sign over the line, thus, ", "he," 77, "in the house of my father" (John xiv. 2).

The comparative table of alphabets inserted below will, I trust, prove sufficiently explanatory in itself, though it may be needful to indicate the derivation of and authority for some of the less common forms. The excellent series of Numismatic Phoenician was cut for the Duc de Luynes, for the illustration of his work on the Satrapies. The outlines are chiefly derived from the forms of the Phoenician alphabet in use on the coins of Cilicia and Cyprus.

The old Syriac may be useful in the present instance among the associated Pehlvi alphabets for the purposes of comparison, in its near proximity in point of date and local employment. This font was prepared under the supervision of the late Dr. Cureton, whose account of the sources from whence it was derived is as follows:

"It was principally copied from MSS. of the sixth century, and represents the earliest form of the character known to us. It is identical with that of the most ancient MS. in the British Museum-date A.D. 411; but the forms of the letters are made a little more carefully than they were written by the person who copied that MS., and imitate more elosely those of some better scribe, although about a century later."

The modern Pehlvi was engraved by Marcellin Legrand of Paris, under the direct superintendence of M. Jules Mohl, and to my understanding offers the best and closest imitation of the ancient writing as yet produced. I have so far departed from the primary intention of the designers as to employ the letter, to which they had assigned the value of a kh, as the more appropriate representative of the simple h, in order to avoid the confusion incident to the use of the unpointed, which in the original scheme was called upon to do duty indifferently for either a or h.

In order to complete the alphabetical illustrations connected with the later history of Sassanian writing, I append a comparative table of the Pehlvi and Zend characters, which in itself demonstrates the direct derivation of the latter series from its more crude model, and enables us to trace the amplification and elaboration of the earlier literal forms to meet the wants of the more refined grammar of the Zend, a reconstruction which seems to have been aided by the high degree of perfection already reached in the alphabetical definitions of cognate Aryan languages.

INSCRIPTION No. 1.

The first inscription of the series under review is engraved upon the most prominent of the Sassanian sculptures at Naksh-i-Rustam,1 wherein Ormazd is represented as bestowing a second or Imperial cydaris upon Ardeshír Bábekán on the occasion of his final victory over the last of the Arsacidæ, whose prostrate body is exhibited on the battle field beneath the feet of the equestrian group, and whose individuality is distinctly marked by the snake-crested helmet of the Mede." Ormazd's costume consists of a high mural crown, with closely twisted curls rising in a mass above it; his beard is cut square, and his flowing locks are curled elaborately over his shoulders, above and behind which float the conventional Sassanian fillets.3 In his left hand he holds a sceptre or baton, erect, and with

1 Ker Porter, vol. i. pl. xxiii. p. 548; Flandin, vol. iv. pl. 182. A similar sculpture, reproducing the same leading figures on foot, is copied in pl. xxvii. Ker Porter; Flandin, 192, 3.

2 Astyages-, "a dragon;", "a serpent;" Moses of Khorene, i. 123, 167. Hia=Mar, "serpent," Anquetil, ii. p. 497; Rawlinson, J.R.A.S. xv. 242; Zohak of the Shah Námah, Haug, 157., "a serpent;" fe fan, a name of Krishna and Indra, "subduing a demon!" The Dahák of the Yasna is described as "tribus-oribus-præditum, tribus-capitibus," etc. (Kossowicz). Masaudi's tradition speaks of "deux serpents nés sur les épaules de Dahhak” (iii. p. 252). Les descendans d'Astyages établis en Arménie portoient encore le nom de Vischabazouni ce que signifie race de dragon. Cette denomination leur venoit du nom du roi des Médes.-St. Martin, i. 285.

3 Flandin's copy, in plate 182 of his work, altogether omits these pennants, though Ormazd has them to the full in other plates, 186, 192 bis; (Ker Porter, xxvii. No. 1). Ormazd is frequently represented in other compositions amid these sculptures. For instance, in plate 44, Flandin, at Fírozábád, where he again appears in the act of presenting a cydaris to Ardeshír. This bas relief is remarkable for the subsequent addition of a modern Pehlvi legend, which is only dubiously intelligible in Flandin's copy. Ormazd is depicted in a new and modified form in the bas-relief at Ták-i-Bustán (pl. lxvi. Ker Porter, vol. ii.; Malcolm's Persia, vol. i. p. 259; and pl. 14, Flandin, vol. i.), where he is introduced as apparently sanctioning the final abdication of Ardeshír and the transfer of the Sassanian diadem to Sapor.* Ormazd in this case stands at the back of the former monarch, with his feet resting on a lotus flower; he holds the peculiar baton or sceptre in the usual position, but this time with both hands; and instead of the hitherto unvarying mural crown, the head seems uncovered, but closely bound with the conventional diadem, with its broad pendant fillets, while the head itself is encircled with rays of glory, after the Western idea of a nimbus.†

The association of Sapor in the government, or perhaps only his recognition as heir apparent, is illustrated by the coins of the period. See Num. Chron. xv. p. 181.

+A similar form is given to Ormazd's head-gear in the coin of Hormisdas II., quoted p. 42 post.

his right he extends towards the conqueror a circlet, to which are attached the broad wavy ribbons so exaggerated in their dimensions at this period.

Ardeshír wears a close-fitting scull-cap shaped helmet, from the centre of which ascends a globe-like balloon, which is supposed to typify some form of fire or other equivalent of our Western halo. The head-piece is encircled with a diadem, from which depend the Dynastic flowing fillets, and the helmet is completed for defensive purposes by cheek-plates and a sloping back-plate. The beard seems to have been injured if we are to trust Ker Porter's copy; but Flandin represents it as ending in a tied point, a fashion seemingly only introduced by Sapor. The hair is disarranged, possibly to indicate the recent combat. The remaining details of the sculpture are unimportant in their bearing upon the present inquiry, but it must be noted that the inscriptions, in either case, are cut upon the shoulder of the horse bearing the figure each of the triple legends are designed to indicate, so that there can be no possible doubt about the identification of the persons, or the intentional portraiture of the contrasted divinity and king; the former of which is of peculiar interest in disclosing the existing national ideal of the form and external attributes of Ormazd, so distinctly defined as "the god of the Arians" by Darius himself in his celebrated Cuneiform record at Behistun, iv. 12, 13 (J.R.A.S. xv. 130, 144),

The style of the legend embodying the monarch's titles, though tinged with ever-prevailing Oriental hyperbole, is modest in regard to the extent of his dominions, which are confined to Irán proper; and the like reserve is maintained in the epigraphs upon both Ardeshír's money, and many, if not all, of Sapor's coins;1 though the inscriptions at Páï Kúlí, if they are found hereafter to have emanated from the founder of the dynasty, about which there may still be some vague doubt would seem to prove that the An Irán, or countries other than Irán, in modern speech, associated as Irán and

1 Varahran I. seems to have been the first to record the An irán on his currency, but want of space in the field of the coins may well have counselled previous

omissions.