Page:The Aryan Origin of the Alphabet.djvu/29

Rh reads as in the first and so on in alternating direction, like the track of oxen in ploughing. The probable significance of this Hittite feature is seen in regard to the authorship of the alphabet, see later.

Col. 5 has the reversed or retrograde tailed letters, the Hamitic, or so-called "Semitic" Phœnician, on the Moabite Stone of the ninth century B.C. Similar letters are found in inscriptions at old Phœnician sites in the Mediterranean basin from Gades or Cadiz, Marseilles, Sardinia, Malta, Carthage, Cyprus, Cilicia to Phœnicia.

Col. 6 gives the Phrygian form of the Cadmean letters from "the tomb of Midas," usually dated to about the eighth or seventh century B.C., but certainly much earlier. Its early date for an eastern alphabet is evidenced by the letter F and the early forms for U, P and G. Col. 7 gives the Carian. The Carians or Karians were a famous seafaring people and military mercenaries of western Asia Minor and occupied the greater part of Ionia there before the arrival of the Greeks. They were presumably a colony of Phœnicians. An ancient name for Caria was "Phœnice," which I have shown was a common name for Phœnician colonies all over the Mediterranean. Whilst the chief mountain in Caria was named Mt. Phœnix. The Tyrian Phœnicians assisted the Carians in defending themselves against Greek invaders. Caria was in intimate confederate relations with Carthage and Crete; and the Carians were allies of the Trojans in the Great War (Iliad 2 867 f.). The Cadmean alphabet of the later Phœnician colonies in Iberia or Spain is generally identical with the Carian. The signs are after Sayce. Col. 8 gives the Cadmean letters carved by Carians, Ionians or Dorians on the famous rock-cut temple of Rameses