science; and, consequently, that the Chaldeans could never have taught it to other nations, if they themselves had been destitute of letters. Accordingly, it hath been recorded that, on the conquest of Babylon by Alexander, astronomical observations regularly kept, from about 1co years after the deluge, were found in that city, and thence transmitted by Callisthenes to Aristotle. Now, though the authenticity of this fact, mentioned by Porphyry, has been doubted by Le Clerc and others, yet, from additional authorities which cannot be contested, it is certain that such registers had been long preserved. In respect, however, to the writing which recorded them, much information is wanted. Various conjectures have been adduced by different authors for the purpose of illustrating the subject. These Dr. Hager briefly mentions; but, resting nothing upon them, advances of himself the following observations:

A writing has at length been found different from all these, and in shape resembling none of the characters hitherto discovered, excepting those seen on the celebrated ruins of Chehil-minar in Persia, the inscriptions on which, says Anquetil, are the only antient literary monuments to be met with in that country; for the daricks, or antient Persian coins, éxhibit no letters, whatever, and consequently they. the antiquity of the nail-headed characters. And alserve to prove though the Babylonian ones seem to have at the top a shape, somewhat different from the Persepolitan, this is to be ascribed only to. the different workmanship, or different style of writing, as is the case: at different periods and in different countries. Thus we may see the same Persian characters, as represented a hundred years ago by Herbert, who had no knowledge of our Babylonian ones, exactly nail-headed like them, and antient gems and cylinders found in Persja exhibit nail-headed characters exactly of the same kind.

The reason why the Assyrians used characters shaped like nails, may have been arbitrary. Thus we find that the Chinese, at various periods, employed characters of different shapes.

In the same manner the Chaldeans may have adopted the figure of a nail, an object very proper for the purpose. It is, well known that the Romans used every year to drive a nail into the wall of the temple of Jupiter. Clavus annalis appellabatur, says Festus, qui figebatur in parietibus sacrarum edium per annos singulos. As letters in those times were rare, says Livy, nails were employed to mark the number of the years. The same custom prevailed also among the Hetrurians, who used to drive a nail into the wall of the temple of Nortia, an Etruscan goddess, in order to mark the number of the years. It needs, therefore, excite no wonder, if nails were at first employed to supply the place of letters, that letters afterwards imitated the shape of nails. Most of the Roman characters, even, seem to be a mere compound of nails; and though some of them appear to have a rounder shape, we find that the Greek, or Etruscan alphabet, whence they were derived, and which exhibit a more antient and original form, were all pointed, and acquired roundness only in the

course of time. Thus, to give a single instance, the letter O in the Greek and Roman alphabet, corresponds, by its order, to the letter ain of the Samaritan or Phoenician alphabet, from whose shape it was derived. Now this is still extant in the Samaritan as a triangle, thus A, or a compound of three nails; nay, in the most antient Greek inscription we possess, there occurs no other O but in a triangular form, and therefore it is easily to be confounded with the delta, with which it has the same shape; and in the same manner the C, which at present is round like a half moon, was, following the Etruscan alphabet, compounded of two strokes thus, if we adopt the very probable opinion, that the Latin C was derived from the Etruscan K; or, if we pretend to derive it from the third letter of the Greek alphabet, which is gamma (F), it was of course angular. But Velasquez has produced an antient Latin coin, in which the C is expressed thus, and according to the Nouveau Traité de Diplom. it is sometimes so, sometimes like á I, and sometimes like an L.

That the most antient characters of Persia resembled nails, has been already seen; and that they were derived from Babylon, is proved not only by the greater antiquity and culture of the Chaldeans, but also by the testimony of Themistocles, noticed by professors Tychsen and Munter in their recent dissertations on the Persepolitan inscriptions, and before them by Niebuhr, in his description of the ruins of Chehil-minar, where this traveler very judiciously remarks, that the nail-headed characters to be met with in Persia are, perhaps, those antient Assyriac letters of which Themistocles speaks. Or, if the authenticity of these letters should be rejected, we have the testimony of Herodotus, about Darius Hystaspes making use of Assyriac characters, and that of St. Epiphanius, that most of the Persians, even in his time, besides their own letters, employed characters' borrowed from the neighbouring country of Syria.

But what is still more curious, is, that even the oldest Samscrit characters, which, on account of their antiquity, the Indians believe to have been transmitted from heaven, and which they therefore call devanagari, are manifestly compounded of nail-headed perpendicular strokes; which serves to confirm what has been before said, that the Indians derived their astronomy and literature from Assyria through Persia, whence they were conveyed by the Bramins to India. The antient Samscrit characters, indeed, exhibited by Mr. Goldingham, clearly prove what I have here asserted; for, in all the inscriptions on the ruins of Mahabalipuram, there is scarcely a character to be seen, which has not a nail-headed perpendicular line

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like the Babylonian inscriptions, which ought to be so placed, and not with the head at the bottom, as some might place them.' P. 37.

Dr. Hager observes the case to be the same in regard to the ancient inscriptions of Keneri, as well as those of Ellora, Ekvira, and Salsette, in which, the additional ornaments excepted, all

the principal strokes resemble nails; and after instancing, in a specimen of the ancient Samskrit inscription near Buddal, where the third character to the left manifestly appears to be compounded of two nails, one horizontal and the other perpendicular, while most of the others are single nails, he infers it more probable that the Devanagri was derived from the nail-headed characters of Babylon, than, as sir W. Jones believed, from the modern Hebrew, or square Chaldaic.

In support of this opinion the sacred character of Tibet is cited, as also are the Samaritan, the Estranghelo, or Syriac, square characters;-and speaking of the last he proceeds:

Among these the character thet is remarkable; for it is to be found exactly of the same form in the Babylonian inscriptions as on other monuments, which contain nail-headed characters; and, what is more singular, it perfectly agrees with the daleth of the Samaritan and Phoenician alphabets, which, as any one may see, is a letter derived from the same original, and therefore easily to be confounded.

As to the Abyssinian, either the antient or Axumitic, or the Amharic alphabet, its original characters, which bear a strong resemblance to several Greek and Roman ones, are likewise nail-headed. The same is also the case with the Kuzuri, or antient characters of Georgiat, and with the Runic characters of the north, which appear nail-headed. On the other hand, the Armenian, and other alphabets, are not nail-headed, though their form is such as might, notwithstanding, be derived from combinations of nails. Thus the Welch alphabet, as communicated by the learned Mr. Owen, and published in Fry's Pantographia, though it consists of angular strokes only, and strongly confirms what has been said about the antient Greek and Roman letters, yet has no nail-headed tops, any more than the of the Hibernians.' P. 44.

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Allowing to Dr. Hager all the resemblances he here contends for between these respective alphabets and the nail-headed characters on the bricks, they by no means appear to us so strong as to warrant the extent of his conclusion; for, in the first place, all characters must either consist of straight strokes in different directions, or curved. If, now, the curved strokes be considered as merely ornamental parts of letters, and not essential to their significant forms, it follows that they may be omitted: but surely on this principle the Samscrit, the Keneri, the Ellora, Ekvira, and Salsette characters, as well as many of the Tibetan, would no longer be the same; nor could these inscriptions, thus mutilated, be any longer understood. Besides,

*See Ludolf, Grammaric. Amharic. cap. i.

+ See Maggi Syntagma Ling. Oriental. quæ in Georgiæ Region. audiuntur. Romæ, 1760, p. 3. The Bible was published in this character at Moscow, 1743, in folio.

These commonly are included between two horizontal lines at the top and the bottom,'

there has not, in our judgement, been sufficient evidence adduced to show that these nail-headed characters are properly Babylonian. Certainly the existence of those at Persepolis, which bear so near an affinity to the inscriptions on the Babylonian bricks, will not, in the first instance, be affirmed of BabyIonian origin; and while the figures accompanying them, by their dresses as well as the head and inscription in DENON'S monuments of Egypt, found at Suez-afford presumptions of their being properly Persian, will there be aught contradictory to evidence in admitting that the bricks brought from Babylon were the work of Persians, after the overthrow, by Cyrus, of the Babylonian empire.

Being now come to the chapter entitled Babylonian Bricks, it remains for Dr. Hager to inquire, To what kind of writing the inscriptions on the bricks brought from Babylon belong; which is the proper way of reading them; and what may be their contents?"

As to the bricks themselves, he derives their origin from the want of stone in the vicinity of Babylon, and the fitness of the earth about it for the formation of bricks: for not only was the tower of Babel, according to the Scriptures, but the temple of Belus, with the hanging gardens, the famous walls, and all the other edifices, excepting the obelisks and bridge, formed of the same materials; and he adds:-'These bricks served not only for building, but were employed as the most ancient tablets for. writing upon. In respect to this latter application of them, Dr. Hager brings no authority by which to ascertain it. In the book of Job we read of inscriptions made with iron on a rock; and not only the tablets which contained the Decalogue were of stone, but those also set up at the passage of Jordan; though the last being covered with mortar, the inscriptions were possibly made on it. In the prophecy of Ezekiel we read of a brick on which the city of Jerusalem was represented; and this appears to correspond with the masses of baked earth which are the subject of the present inquiry. That bricks were used at Babylon for preserving astronomical calculations, we have the testimony of Pliny: and though Mr. Bryant observes that he cannot help thinking lightly of the learning of a people where such materials were employed-deeming it impossible to receive any great benefit from letters when they are obliged to go to a shard, or an cyster-shell, for information,'-yet NIEBUHR relates that he had seen in Persia, where there is abundance of marble, and sufficient knowledge of letters, inscriptions on bricks; conjecturing, also, that the Babylonian astronomers, in all probability, inscribed on bricks such observations only as

PLIN. Nat. Hist. vii. 57.'

they wished to be preserved from alteration by copyists, or from the injuries of time-bricks being less capable of admitting alterations than stone. Whether these bricks were kept disjunctly, or united by masonry into columns or other monu mental structures, Pliny does not mention; but seeing that, among the Egyptians, inscribed columns were erected to preserve their ancient learning, and that both historians and philosophers borrowed from them; secing, also, that in Crete there were ancient pillars on which the sacrific ritual of the Corybantes was inscribed; and hat, in the time of Demosthenes, there existed a law of Theseus written on a pillar of stone; it follows that, as the Babylonians had no stone, bricks must have been applied by them; and, therefore, that the Babylonish pillar, from which Democritus transcribed his moral discourses, must have been formed of bricks,

After instancing the existence of pillars in other countries, reported to have been reared by the descendents of Seth, Osiris, Bacchus, Hercules, Sesostris, Darius Hystaspes, and Ramases, Dr. Hager proceeds to show that these inscriptions are to be read perpendicularly; and with much ingenuity argues, analogically, from the Chinese, that each combination of characters has a distinct sense; since if they were alphabetic, or syllabic, a frequency of recurrence must be obvious. Concluding, then, that the characters on the Babylonian bricks are really monograms, designed to express, not letters or syllables, but either whole words or sentences, the doctor observes that no other source remains for us at present, except, by means of a great quantity of such characters, to employ the art of combination, and thus decipher their meaning; or to judge by well-founded reasoning what they may probably contain.

By following the latter method,' (continues Dr. Hager) the only one which remains, I shall endeavour to prove that the newly discovered Babylonian inscriptions are ordinary inscriptions on bricks, as was usual among other nations. Thus we find a number of antient Roman bricks, produced by Fabretti, which contain an orbicular impression like that of a large seal, together with inscriptions. These inscriptions generally contain the name given in Latin to pottery; opus figlinum, or opus doliare. Besides this, the name of the proprietor of the manufactory, or place or ground where it was established, was added, as for instance in the following inscription:

• OPVS. DOL. DE FIGVL. PVBLIANIS.
EX. PREDIS, AEMILIAES. SEVERAES.

Where the Latin genitive in aes instead of ae, to distinguish it from the dative, is remarkable.

The name of those who made the bricks, or their size, (as BIPEDALIA) or the town to which they belonged, were sometimes