Page:Troja by Heinrich Schliemann.djvu/33

shown that the so-called Cypriote syllabary is but a branch of a system of writing once used throughout the greater part of Asia Minor before the introduction of the Phoenico-Greek alphabet, which I have accordingly proposed to call the Asianic syllabary. The palaeographic genius of Lenormant and Deecke had already made them perceive that several of the later local alphabets of Asia Minor contained Cypriote characters, added in order to express sounds which were not provided for in the Phoenician alphabet; but Dr. Deecke was prevented by his theory as to the derivation and age of the Cypriote syllabary from discovering the full significance of the fact. It was left for me to point out, firstly, that these characters were more numerous than had been supposed, secondly, that many of them were not modifications but sister-forms of corresponding Cypriote letters, and thirdly, that they were survivals from an earlier mode of writing which had been superseded by the Phoenico-Greek alphabet. I also pointed out-herein following in the steps of Haug and Gomperz—that on three at least of the objects discovered by Dr. Schliemann at Hissarlik, and possibly on others also, written characters were found belonging, not indeed to the Cypriote form of the Asianic syllabary, but to what may be termed the Trojan form of it. Up to this point the facts and inferences were clear.

But I then attempted to go further, and to make it probable that the origin of the Asianic syllabary itself is to be sought in the Hittite hieroglyphics. Since the Appendix was published, this latter hypothesis of mine has received a striking confirmation. A year and a half ago I presented a memoir to the Society of Biblical Archaeology, in which I endeavoured by the help of a bilingual inscription to determine the values of certain of the Hittite characters. Among these there were eight which, if my method of decipherment were correct, denoted either vowels, or single consonants each followed by a single vowel. A few