Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/50

 34 A History of Art in Sardinia and ]ut>jea. Lycia, PIsIdIa, Pamphylla, and other localities, preserved a con- siderable number of the characters of the old syllabary, in order to express sounds not provided for by the Phoenician. All these instances put together enable us to look back upon a time when the primitive ideographs represented by the Hamathlte inscribed characters were common to the whole peninsula ; if they were preserved in their complete homogeneous state in Cyprus alone, they yet left deep traces in localities where they had once reigned supreme, until they were finally superseded by the Phoenician alphabet. But the latter had started on its voyage round the world ages before the conquests of Sargon and Assur-nat-sirpal had made Assyrian influence felt in the basin of the Mediterranean. Setting aside therefore comparison of the different modes of writing, it is not likely that the Aslanic alphabet, as Professor Sayce calls it, waited to constitute itself until Assyria, already in posses- sion of a cuneiform syllabary, came in contact with the various populations of Asia Minor. The characters adopted by these to suit their different dialects, had come to them from Northern Syria, or perhaps Cappadocia, whence they gradually spread. But in course of time they were found too unwieldy for the purposes of trade and daily life, and as a natural consequence underwent com- plete change. The date In which these profound modifications took place stretched over a long period, and cannot now be ascertained ; but, could we do so, such a procedure would exceed the narrow limits we have prefixed to ourselves. This much is certain, they coincide with HIttite preponderance in those pristine days when their battle-cry was heard from the Orontes to the Hermus and the Maeander. The Cypriote alphabet, with only sixty characters representing a syllable each, is but a much-reduced copy of the HIttite, w^hlch according to Professor Sayce has about 125 distinct signs. In the Hamathlte inscriptions a considerable number of Ideographs were preserved, bearing witness to the primitive age when they were rude representations of the actual objects. They did not pass Into later syllabaries, which only received phonetic signs with pretty much the values they had In the original writing. conclusion that the inscriptions found at Hissarlik represent an earUer system of writing than the Cypriote syllabary, and that it was derived straight from Hittite hieroglyphics, which did not pass on to Cyprus until long elaboration had simplified the form and reduced the number of the signs. A resume of this paper will be found in an appendix to Comparative Philology^ entitled " Asianic Syllabary."