Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/287

 word is certainly not that. Assuming, then, that the writer meant, how are we to explain the spelling? If it was a mere blunder of the stone-cutter, it was at least a strange one. In the Greek yodh does not elsewhere appear under a vowel form: nor is it likely that  (originally cheth) should, among its other uses, have served for the yodh. Possibly is here the aspirate; the effect of a double  in  may have been given by writing : or, if  is in itself the archaic equivalent of, the aspirate might be regarded as developed by the double letter.

To sum up: (1) the form, instead of , points to a date earlier than about 540 B.C.; (2) the use of is here various and (apparently) inconstant. It denotes long e; but long e is also denoted by, as in. It stands, not only for the aspirate, but also for an aspirated, and for an aspirated before. In specimens of the Eastern alphabets dating from about 600 to 540 B.C. is already fixed to two uses, (1) as the long e; (2) occasionally, as the aspirate. The fluctuating and seemingly tentative employments of in our inscription point to a time when the sign  had been newly introduced, and when its application still varied with individual or local caprice.

Combining the epigraphic evidence with that afforded by the type of the Artemis, we can scarcely be far wrong if we refer the inscription to about