Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/358

Rh Of these, two are omitted by Oppert^ and one by Weisbach.^ In four cases only have they arrived at absolutely contradictory values.*^

The discovery announced in 1859 of a determinative siL»n to indicate that the one preceding it should be read ideographically led to the identification of a luimber of signs to which ideographic values may be attaclied, and their number is raised from the seven known in 1859 to sixteen. The ones now added by ppert are ' town,' ' mountain/ ' race,' ' arch ' (a win- dow), ' sea,' * house,' ' head,' ' ship,' ' camel ' ; and Weisbach has since contributed a fifth determinative which, he says, is placed before articles of wood.^

The difficulty of the transliteration is greatly enlianced by the lact that the same sign represents both y/i and it\ and the three gradations of sound — the surd, aspirate and sonant — are not distinguished by separate signs. It is therefore impossible to say in many cases whether to transcribe ?;i or w, k or //, p or />, /' or d ; and Oppert has enumerated no less than six different modi- fications of sounds — c {trh), y {(Jj\ 5, fe, (/c, and z — that are all represented by a single sign.^ Weisbach points out that //, is only clearly distinguished from k when it occurs before /. The Median z represents the P(^rsian e, f\ j\ and the Babylonian s (and o ?) ; the r and n are some- times found to be interchangeable. When the sound cannot be checked by its occurrence in a proper name, Oppert generally adopts the hard sound ; but he allows

Oppert includes among his signs, but cannot find its value. In Norris it is * kwe.' In the list given in Sayce's article it is * khub.' Weisbach gives ^kupC-'VNo. 2J>.
 * Namely, No. 21, which Weisbach values as *zis' No. 2o. No. 20

^ Weisbach fails to find a value for 71*, to which Opprrt gives * nu ' (No. 41).

^ No. .So ppert * git,' Weisbach * am ' ; 3J)' Oppeit * mun,' Weisbach
 * tnm ' ; 71 ** Oppert * kin ' ; Weisbach * en ' ; 76 Oppert o, Weisbach //.


 * W^eisbach, op. cit. p. 33. ' Oppert, op. cit. p. 30.