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The Introduction of the Cadmeian Alphabet into the Aegean World in the light of Ancient Traditions and Recent Discoveries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
In his review of my book on the newly deciphered Sinai inscriptions (JRAS., 1920, p. 301) the Rev. Professor A. H. Sayce has already been good enough to mention my recent discovery of some short alphabetic biliteral inscriptions on certain copper ingots, unearthed from the very border-line of the so-called “ Middle Minoan III ” and “ Late Minoan I ” layers of the Hagia Triada palace by the excavation mission in Crete of Messrs. Halbherr, Pernier, Stefani, and Paribeni in 1903 as well as on similar pieces from Tylissos and Mochlos, none being from Phaistos. All of them are at present in the museum of Heraklea, under the care of Professor Josef Hazzidakis, to whose kindness I owe the photographs reproduced in figures 1–8. Similar inscriptions have come from Serra Ilixi (Sardinia), and are now in the royal museum of Cagliari. I have to thank Professor Taramelli, director of this collection, for his kindness in sending me the excellent paper squeezes of these scribings, which the reader will find reproduced in fig. 10.
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page 35 note 1 Cf. Paribeni, Rendic. d. R. Acad. d. Linc., cl. sc. mor., ser. va, vol. xii, pp. 334ff.; Pigorini, ibid., p. 304; and Bull, di Paletnologia Italiana, xxx, Apr.–June 4–6, pp. 91–107. Svoronos, Journ. Intern. d'Archéol. Numism., Athens, 1906, ix, pp. 167 ff. (in Greek !) = (in French) Rev. Belge de Numism. 64, Brussels, 1908, pp. 312 ff. Dussaud, Civilis. Préhelleniques,2, Paris, 1914, pp. 250 f. R. v. Lichtenberg, Mitt. V. As. Ges., 1911, p. 112, fig. 21.
page 35 note 2 Hazzidakis, Ephém. archéol., 1912, pp. 220 ff.
page 35 note 3 Dawkins, Journ. Hell. Stud., 1908, p. 326.
page 35 note 4 It is only a lapsus calami of Svoronos to quote the Hagia Triada samples as from Phaistos.
page 36 note 1 Regling in Pauly's Realencycl.2 viia, 974. Rob. Forrer, Reallex., Leipzig, 1907, p. 79. Jahrb. d. Gesellsch. f. lothr. Gesch., xviii, 1906, pp. 1 ff.
page 36 note 2 Professor Svoronos' theory (p. 324 of the above-quoted French paper), that casts of this shape, but of smaller size, were originally intended to be sharpened into real cutting axes by the customers of the metal foundries, would be acceptable only if it could be proved that there ever existed real cutting axes with concave edges, intended possibly for the felling of round timber. But such tools have never been found, and are not likely to have ever been used; for such an adaptation of the axe-edge to the cylindrical surface of the tree-trunk would have proved far from advantageous to the worker. Also if the peculiar shape of these ingots were intended to resemble the sacred double-axe (Svoronos, pp. 175 f.), we should expect them to show the convex edges of the latter. Therefore, Professor Forrer may be right in comparing (Jahrb. f. lothr. Gesch., xviii, 1906, p. 24) the shape of these casts to the hide of a skinned animal and in suggesting a possible reminiscence of skin-money. He also thinks (Reallex., p. 79) the shape was intended to facilitate the binding together of whole piles of such ingots (as a matter of fact they were found in such piles in Hagia Triada, Paribeni, l.c., p. 334, “posti l'uno sull'altro in colonna”), even as nowadays cards or boards of a similar shape are used for winding fishing-lines or cords of any other kind. The “handles” of such an ingot would also be very convenient for lifting the cooled cast from the mould. On the other hand, there is not the slightest doubt that real double and single axes and other metal tools of the ordinary serviceable shape and size were primitively used as a monetary currency. See Lissauer, Zeitschr. f. Ethnol., 1905, pp. 519–25, 779 ff., 1007 ff. On axeshaped copper ingots of the Haida Indians see R. Forrer, Antiqua, 1885, p. 125, pl. 28.
page 37 note 1 A. Evans, Corolla Numismatica in honour of Barclay V. Head, Oxford, 1906, p. 356, fig. 11, p. 361, fig. 14.
page 37 note 2 Numism. Zeitschr., xxxvi, 11, 1. Cf. Röm. Kupferpräg., p. 5, 2.
page 37 note 3 l.c., 974, 1. 40.
page 37 note 4 l.c., pp. 172, 178.
page 37 note 5 Corolla Num., pp. 358–63.
page 37 note 6 Jahrb. f. lothr. Gesch., xviii, 1906, pp. 23 ff.
page 37 note 7 The reader will do well to compare the materials collected by the two last-named distinguished authors with the recently published systematic table of ancient weights in Professor Lehmann-Haupt's masterly article “ Gewichte ” in Pauly's Realencycl., 2, iii, Suppl., 1918, 611–14. We can make things a good deal clearer to-day than Evans and Forrer could be expected to do on the basis of Nissen's now antiquated metrological researches.
page 37 note 8 Cf. the frequent description of the legal coin as “denarii meri et pleniter pensantes” in the capitularia of the Carlovingian kings, v. Luschin, Grundriss d. Münzkunde, Leipzig, 1918, p. 60. Gold solidi of Constantine the Great and gold bars with the mark OB = βρυζον = purum, Luschin, Allg. Münzkunde, Munich, 1904, p. 60, cf. ibid., p. 141, about “argentum purum”, “ purificatum”, pusulatum (= burnt silver), “merum,” etc.
page 37 note 9 Hill, Proc. Soc. Antiqu., xx, 90 ff. Dressel, Abh. Berl. Akad., 1906, 4. Kubitschek, Numism. Zeitschr., xlii, 33 ff. Cf. the medieval “getekente” mark, Luschin, l.c., p. 37.
page 38 note 1 Cæsar, Bell. Gall., v, 12: “ taleae ferreae ad certum pondus examinatae.” Such iron bars have been found in the south of England, and are reproduced after Read's Guide to the British Museum, in R. Forrer's Reallex., p. 79, figs. 68–70.
page 38 note 2 The word τλαντον seems to be characterized by its termination in -ντ like σμινθος, “bathing-tub,” περινθος, etc. (Cuny, Rev. étud. anc, xii, 1910, pp. 154–64), as belonging to the same Prehellenic and Asianic stratum as the place-names ending in -nda,-νθος, -νσος, that is, according to Dr. Emil Forrer's recent Boghazköy discoveries, to the Luvian language.
page 38 note 3 Pigorini's table, l.c., shows that no two of the ingots are of exactly the same size. Length and breadth vary by several inches. Therefore the similarity of the weights can in no case be attributed with Regling, l.c., 974, 1. 33, to the use of one and the same or of a standard mould.
page 38 note 4 The weight of these two ingots corresponds exactly to that of the “ Minoan” gypsum stone-weight from Knossos, Evans, Ann. Brit. School of Athens, vii, pp. 42 f. Corolla, Num., p. 342, fig. 1.
page 38 note 5 Lehmann-Haupt, Pauly's R.E. 2 Suppl., iii, 608–10.
page 39 note 1 Ibid., col. 632, 1. 34.
page 40 note 1 These numbers are given by Dussaud, l.c., p. 250, after Murray (see note 3).
page 40 note 2 Thus Pigorini, l.c., p. 97; probably through a lapsus calami or misprint.
page 40 note 3 Murray, Excavations in Cyprus, p. 15, fig. 1535; cf. p. 17.
page 41 note 1 Olshausen, Z. f. Ethnol., xv, 86 ff.
page 41 note 2 Pigorini, p. 102, n. 1.
page 42 note 1 ‘ … μιπλεκκονׁ τ τριμναῖον ἢ τετραμναῖον ἢ πενταμναῖονׁ τ γρ δεκμνουν πλεκυς καλεῖται παρ Πφιοις’ׁ πλεκυς στθμιον ξαμνιαῖον ρχαῖονׁ οἱ δ δωδεκαμναῖον. The two passages are obviousily derived from two different sources, the second one referring to another standard than that of the Cyprian system.
page 42 note 2 ‘ … ἰστον ὅτι πελκεων μν οὐ μα σημασοαׁ δηλο γρ λξις δμωνυμας λγῳ κατ τοὺς παλαιοὺς κα στθμιον ν Κρτῃ ξμνουν ἢ δεκμνουν.’
page 43 note 1 O. Lagercrantz, Xenia Lindeniana, Stockholm, 1919 = Indog. Jahrb., i, 91.
page 43 note 2 Wendland, Hell. Röm. Kultur, pl. xii; Gressmann, Texte u. Bilder. p. 78, fig. 142; Alter Orient, iv, 1, 2, p. 25, fig. 6.
page 43 note 3 Thus, e.g. T. K. Cheyne, Enc. Bibl., col. 1750, 1. 1.
page 44 note 1 The word “ coin,” Latin cuneus, denotes, of course, a peculiar kind of tool-money, i.e. metal bars or wedges. It is interesting to remember that the thunder-weapon—a hammer in the North, a double-axe in the Near East—is called “ Donnerkeil ” = thunder-wedge in German, because lightning cleaves tree trunks. A μιπλεκκον or indeed any primitive one-sided axe without its wooden handle, may well be called a “ wedge ”. Cf. also Anc. Version Josh. vii, 21, Is. xiii., 12, a “ wedge ” of gold with the ancient British “ taleae ad certum pondus examinatae ”, above, n. 16.
page 44 note 2 E.g. 1 Kings vi, 20; vii, 49f.; x, 21.
page 44 note 3 Muss-Arnold, s.v. biltu, šakru, χurāçu.
page 44 note 4 = “fresh,” said of new wire ropes, Judg. xvi. 7f. Otherwise it may be a Sumerian loan-word from luχ = pure. Cf. RTC., 23, ii, 4 (Lugalanda) : 1 mana ⅓ urud luχ-χ-a (pure copper) an-na-bi gin 13⅓.
page 44 note 5 See Regling, l.c., vii. 780, on the greatly varying quantity of copper contained in ancient Italian œs signatum. Chemical analyses of the Sardinian ingots in Pigorini's paper, p. 93, of the Chalkidian ones, p. 105, of the Cyprian ingot, p. 97, 2. Cf. Dussaud, l.c., p. 253.
page 45 note 1 Dr. E. Forrer tells me that the GU, KU sign is mostly used for the syllable gu in these tablets. See about the equivalence of the roots ננז and קקז, “ to purify metals,” Job xxviii, 1; Mal. iii, 3; Ps. xii, 7; l:Chron. xxviii, 18, xxix, 4. Fränkel, Aram. Fremdw. im Arab., 1886, p. 64; Gesenius, 16 ed., s.v. קקז. Muss-Arnold, s.v. zakû “ pure ”.
page 45 note 2 This northernmost Assyrian colony goes back to the conquest of Asia Minor by Sargon of Agade (about 2800 b.c.), the historicity of which is now ascertained by new texts from Boghazköy through E. Forrer's perspicacity. Cappodocia was still called Ασσυρα by Arrian (ap. Eustath. in Dionys. Perieg., 772) and Scylax, 89 (Apoll. Rhod., 2,948, and Dionys. Perieg., l.c.).
page 46 note 1 Contenau, Trente Tablettes Cappadociennes, Paris, 1919, p. 69. I owe this reference to Dr. E. Forrer.
page 46 note 2 F. Hommel, Gesch. d. alten Morgenlands, Stuttgart, 1895, p. 147f., Meissner, Babylonien and Assyrien, Heidelberg, 1920, p. 356 (kanku).
page 46 note 3 Muss-Arnold, 309b, and 340b, s.v. χaṭu and χurāçu.
page 47 note 1 That is, “Khittim-gold,” mentioned in Egyptian texts of Dyn. 18 as “ good gold of ktm ” or “ of ktm. t ”, W. M. Müller, Asien u. Europa, p. 75, which, I believe, is the land of the Kittim, the Greek Κητιεῖς of Homer, the people of Κτια and of Kition and Κτις in Cilicia, perhaps of Καταμα-νη (-na, Asianic suffix for “town”, Lehmann-Haupt, MVAG., 1916, 138, note) in Syria Commagene (Ptol., 2, 15, 10), and possibly of Καταωνια (*ΚαταϜωνια<Katama-na ?). The םיתיכ should not be confounded, according to E. Forrer, with the םיתח or Hatti ! The name of a metal may be derived from or, conversely, be identical with the name of a land or people—e.g. κασστερον = Kaši-metal, that is, tin from Khorasan, Drangiana, Mazgerd, and Tabris; käsp = “ silver ” = “Caspian” metal; lead (luaide, lauda, leod, lood) = the Lydian (Lud-) metal; χλυψ= “ steel”, the Chalybian metal; copper = Cyprus metal; “messinc” = Μοσσνοικος χαλκς; Skt. yavaneshṭha, “tin,” literally “Greek” metal (Lippmann, Alchem., p. 588); mlecchāsya and mlecchā-mukha = “ copper ” (Liebich, ZDMG., 1918, 286), see below, μαλαχτης = meluχû; χatuš = “ silver ” = χatti-metal. This is well illustrated by the cuneiform word-list V R 27, No. 1, col. 1, 1. 25, the knowledge of which I owe to Dr. E. Forrer : urudu NITUG-KI (copper-ore from Dilmun) = dilmunû. urudu Maganna = maganû. urudu Meluχa (= Sinai, Edom) = meluχû (= Greek μαλαχτης !). The last line decides, by the by, finally the position of Meluχa against Edward Meyer, Ethiopia having never had any copper, while the Egyptian copper-mines of the Fayyûm were not known before the age of the Ptolemies. In a vague sense Meluχa did sometimes signify, even as Muçri, all the land west from the brook of Egypt.
page 47 note 2 Cf. Luschin, Allg. Münzkunde, pp. 141 f., about the mediæval marcae argenti usualis signatae, “ Marken tokens,” getekente Marken, silver bars (p. 142, fig. 85) with the stamp of the town of origin and fabricated according to the varying local standards of purity.
page 47 note 3 Pigorini, l.c., p. 97, after Murray, in Murray, Smith, and Walters, Excavations in Cyprus, London, 1900, pp. 1–54. Dussaud, 2, p. 250.
page 48 note 1 Κλμαξ Τρου, 1, Macc. xii, 59 Joseph. BJ., II, x, 2. See also Phœnician Arvad = Egyptian erwad “stair”, or the “incense stairs”, on the shore of Pwnt (Ὀπώνη), W. M. Müller, l.c., p. 118; Inscr. Ppj, ii; Weill, Inscr. Sinai, No. 19; cf. pp. 49 f., “Malachite stairs”, etc. Brewster, in Sethe, Unters., i, 53, n. b.
page 48 note 2 Regling, l.c., vii, 983.
page 48 note 3 Hebrew in Esra iv, 13. Cf. Muss-Arnold, s.v. biltu = lit. φρος, German “ Tracht ”, “carry”. The expression has not yet been found in Phœnician inscriptions.
page 48 note 4 As to the stamp on another of the Serra Ilixi ingots which is reproduced as a by Pigorini, the paper squeeze does not apparently confirm his drawing. I should rather see a on the squeeze and explain it as the “ trident ”-mark discussed on p. 52.
page 49 note 1 The or or is originally a “ sharp ” or “hissing ” s; so the name ξῖ was pronounced χσῖ only when later on the sign began to be used for the double sound—συμφωνα as the Greek grammarians call it. As to the Babylonian origin of this and the other alphabetic signs compare my forthcoming book on the origin of the alphabet.
page 49 note 2 Levy, Semit. Fremdw. im Griech., s. v.
page 49 note 3 R. Forrer, Jb. f. Lothr., 1906, p. 50, fig. 3.
page 50 note 1 I should like to add here that I cannot understand how my kind critic could say (p. 299 l.c.) that בהאמ on the Sphinx of Serabiṭ is a plene writing, when the א obviously belongs to the triliteral stem of בהא “ love ”. Omitting the א, we should have תלעבהמ, that is simply “ from the Lady ”, and nobody could possibly recognize any longer in this doubly curtailed phrase (haplography of the ב as in Meriba‘al for Meribba‘al!), the occurrence of בהא “ beloved” (= “ for love”). Again, as to the Phœnician jōd, “ hand ” Nöldecke's supreme authority in the matter of Semitic dialects has already proved that ἰτα, jōd, is the peculiar Cana‘anite dialectic form for jad. Since then Bauer-Leander have pointed out that the Cana‘anite always said ō for ā; it is therefore safe to suppose that the Cana‘anite Amarna scribe pronounced bjōdēhu when he wrote badiu in a script that had no o-signs ! (Cf. e.g. Cana‘anite Dagon, written either Dagan or Dagûn, MVAG., 1903, 5, 103, in cuneiform signs.) He cannot be expected to have written budiu, like suffetes for šōph∂tim, for that is only the latest Phœnician darkening of the å vowel. I have supposed on p. 374 of my Ḳen. Inschr. that this Cana‘anite darkening of the Semitic vowels is due to race-mixture with a pre-Semitic Asianic people, and I see now with pleasure that Hüsing, Mitt, anthropol. Gesellsch., 46, Vienna, 1916, vi, 218, has explained this phenomenon very simply by the peculiar build of the so-called Hittite opisthognathic skull-profile, which must cause a shifting of a-sounds towards the dark vowels of the back tongue, while the strong under-jaw of the orthognathic and prognathic races favours the production of the fore-tongue vowels a, e.
page 51 note 1 Förtsch, Schriftdenkmäler Vorderasiens, xiv, 1, 951. I owe this important sample to Professor P. Deimel, S.J., of the Roman Bible Academy.
page 52 note 1 Philostephanos, fragm. 11.
page 53 note 1 For the special documentation of this question I must refer the reader to my forthcoming book.
page 53 note 2 In the Ḳenite inscriptions the çadē is represented by an unmistakable fishing hook. See p. 108 of my edition.
page 54 note 1 To think of Sabaean ḍappa is scarcely possible. First, because there is not the slightest trace of this sign-value in the whole northern and Ægean world; and, secondly, because I do not know any plausible explanation of a ḍappa-monogram. Neither Çōr nor Çidon nor Çarephath could possibly be written with a ḍappa.
page 54 note 2 Generally dated in the fifth century b.c. For the shape compare the comparative table at the end of Larfeld's handbook of Greek epigraphy, 3, Munich, 1914.
page 54 note 3 Evans, Cor. Num., p. 363, fig. 15.
page 56 note 1 The Pythagoreans used letters reversed or placed askew for musical notation, as may be seen from the table at the end of Jan's Musici scriptores Graeci.
page 56 note 2 See p. 111 of my Kenit. Weihinschr.
page 56 note 3 The horizontal bar could not be omitted, for ץ alone would be נ in this script.
page 57 note 1 Isolated signs of this shape occur, however, as mason's marks on stone-blocks of the Cnossian Palace. See Sir A. Evans, Palace of Minos, p. 133, Fig. 99.
page 57 note 2 Pigorini, l.c., p. 98, reproduces these signs as . But his zincotype as well as the paper-squeeze show the respective position of the signs to be as rendered in the text. I have also been unable to find the ק sign (which could only be an ר, and which, if it existed, could possibly be a trade-mark of the Redenneh-mines of Sinai), reproduced in outline in Pigorini's paper, anywhere on the photographs or on the excellent paper squeezes. As it is technically unlikely that the sign should be on the smooth back which could not be got at as long as the cast was hot, I am at a loss to guess where P. could have believed he saw it.
page 58 note 1 It is in reality—see ch. 34, note 1034, of my alphabet-book—the Babylonian sign , cuneiform , values ḪE, GAN, ḲAN, GAM, ḲAM. Its use for the emphatic ḳ shows that the emphatic guttural was thought to be very similar to the value of the נ, as e.g. in the modern Egyptian Sinai dialects of Arabic the is pronounced, that is, as another slightly different GAM-mu, a KAM-mu by the scribes, where this sign was introduced for ḳ (q). Others felt, as the names kâf and ḳâf (or ḳôf) suffice to show, the q to be a differentiation of the k.
page 59 note 1 p. 97, n. 4 of my edition.
page 59 note 2 Gesenius-Buhl. Hebr. Diet., 16, p. 197a.
page 59 note 3 Zehnpfund, Beitr. z. Ass., i, 634.
page 59 note 4 Sumer. Gloss., 45.
page 60 note 1 Sb. 199, zi-iq | ZIG | zi-iq-qua, Hommel, Sum. Lesestücke. Brünnow, 4690.
page 60 note 2 See the different forms in Is. Levy's Vocabulario, Geroglifico, i, xcvii, No. 1264, and lxxviv, No. 962.
page 60 note 3 L. Borchardt, MVAG., 1917, xxii, p. 345, n. 6.
page 60 note 4 Hebrew קש could stand for Phœnician קם, the ם for ז being conformed to the specific Phœnician phonetism (Brockelmann, Sem. Sprachwiss., Berlin, 1916, p. 72, § 88, like דכם for דכז. Egyptian is an Asiatic loincloth.
page 60 note 5 win in the new “ Canesian ” Boghazköy texts, Greek Ϝοῖνος, Arab. wain, Hebr. yajn. See on this class of Asianic words A. Cuny, Rev. Ét. anc, xii, 1910, p. 161.
page 60 note 6 That all metal-names in the Semitic languages are foreign loanwords has been shown Kenit. Weihinschr., pp. 74 f.
page 61 note 1 Greek Τρος = Phœnician þurru. Plutarch, vita Sullæ, c. xvii, “ θώρ Βον Φονικες ” for Hebr. לשׁ, Aram. רוׁת, Arab. þaur = Phœnician þōr.
page 61 note 2 Halle a. S., 1918, p. 35a.
page 62 note 1 Petrie's dates, dyn. 12, for the wooden “ ’Aḥitob ” inscription found in Kahun and for the scribings on black pottery sherds from the same mound have been vehemently attacked by v. Bissing, Sitz.-Ber. Bayr. Akad. Wiss., ph. h. Cl. 1920, 9, p. 12. He would rather place the Sinai inscriptions attributed by Gardiner to the age of Amenemmes III (dyn. 12) in the Amarna period. See, however, my reply in the Lehmann-Haupt sixtieth anniversary volume of the “ Janus”, vol. i, p. 18, n. 1. But even v. Bissing does not go lower than dyn. 18.
page 63 note 1 inscription on Abydosvase dyn. 18, O. A. Wainwright, Ancient Egypt, 1917, 99; , and EII on Kahun potsherds; בטחא inscription on wooden tool from Kahun (dyn. 12 according to Petrie). See my Ḳenit. Weihinschriften, Freiburg, 1919, pp. 124 ff. and 172.
page 63 note 2 p. 118 of my last-quoted book. Had I then known the Cretan copper πελκεις I should not have thought of connecting the “ Cadmean ” colonization of the Ægean with the Amarna period on the basis of a too limited interpretation of the ethnological term Καδμεονες. The explicit palinode of this mistake is to be seen in the text above.
page 63 note 3 Ap. Bekker, Anecd. i, p. 783. Clem. Alex., Strom, i, p. 362. Herodot., 5, 58 f.
page 63 note 4 Hellanicus is probably the author on whose authority Aristotle (Pseudepigr., 1, p. 493, Rose, No. 105, cf. ibid., p. 472) attributed in his Θηβαων πολτεια to “ Cadmus ” the working of the Theban quarries and mines (Hygin., f. 274c; Plin., N.H. 7, 57, 197) and the opening of the gold mines around the Pangaion (Plin., l.c.; Clem. Alex., Strom, i, p. 307b; Demetr. Skeps. in Strabo, 14, p. 680; Callisthenes fr. 29; Gaede, p. 20 M.). Herod., 6, 47, attributes to the Phœnician settlers the great Thasian gold mines at Κοινορα and Αἰνορα. Both names are indeed transparently Semitic; “ fire-smithy ” and “ fire-pit” (for smelting). Ps. Dicæarch, fr. Paris. 12, Geogr. Graeci Min., i, 102, makes “ Cadmus” build “ water-tunnels” (σωλνες) leading down from the “ Cadmean ” acropolis of Thebes to a hidden fountain. Exactly such σωλνες are typical for the Canaansean fortresses at Jerusalem, Gezer, Gibeon, and Etam. See Dalman, Palæstina Jahrbuch, 1915, p. 66.
page 64 note 1 A god iluḲudmu occurs in CT., xxii, pl. xv, 1. 28 f. Cf. the god “ Oriens”, Cumont, Text. Mon. Cult, de Mithra, i. 128, 6. Κδμος’ fighting against the dragon is parallel to the Babylonian god Marduk's, i.e. the rising sun's fight against Tihamat.
page 64 note 2 Eustath. Geogr. Gr. Min., ii, p. 289; Steph. Byz., s.v. Ιλλρια. This form of the name is not “ epical” (Crusius in Roscher's Lex. Myth., ii, 1, 852, 1. 46; Fleck. Ib., 143, 1891, p. 390), that is, due to the requirements of the hexameter, but corresponds to the Semitic ינִלמדְקַ, nom. gentil., Gen. xv, 19, and ןלמדְקַ, qadmōn, =“ eastern” (s. the relevant art. in Ges.-Buhl., 16, 702), Ez. xlvii, 8. O. Crusius, whose article is generally quoted by the antagonists of the “ Phœnician” etymology (thus again quite lately in Latte's Pauly-Wissowa article on the subject, 1919), told me himself in 1908—he had just accepted for the “ Philologus ” Assmann's paper on Semitic place-names in Crete—with his characteristic frankness that he was by no means sure whether his old Cadmus article was not fundamentally wrong on this point. Dussaud—certainly not a believer in Phœnician influence on Mediterranean culture—says quite correctly (civ. Préhell., 2, p. 391): “ la génealogie de Cadmus est un simple mythe éthnographique analogue à celui du chapitre x de la Genèse (filiations de Sem, Cham, Japhet). Les quatres enfants d’Agénor, fils lui-même de Libyé: Europe, Cadmus, Phoinix et Cilix sont de la géographie mise en mythes ”; the same holds good of course also of Cadmus' “ brother” Thasos and of his wife Ἁρμονα, “ queen of the Amazons ” (see above, p. 43, n. 1), that is, the cuneiform matArmān = Ἀρμνη or Ἀρμνη; ethnic Ἀρμnu;ιος and eponym Ἀρμνιος, Plut. qu. symp., 9, 52 and the Thracian town Αλμωνα-Μινας
page 64 note 3 Isaac Taylor, the Alphabet, 2, London, 1883, vol. ii, p. 19, has well compared the “ Ostmen ” (Danes) of Dublin and the name “ Easterlings” given to the Lubeck merchants by the English of the fourteenth century, which survives in the name of the “ pound (ea)sterling”, originally the Hanseatic coinage. Other good analogies are Old-German Osta-richi, “ Eastern realm” = Austria, Francian “ Austrasia”, (opp. Neustria, Neustrasia), and the modern “ Australia ” (= Extreme Orient, far East). Also Japan, the “ empire of the rising sun ”.
page 65 note 1 Even in the days of S. Augustine, Bishop of African Hippo (Expos. in Epist. ad Rom. 13), the Carthaginian peasants called themselves still “ Chanani, i.e. Chananaeos ”. It must not be objected that the name Καδμεα occurs as well in the West (Carthage, cf. Hygin, f. 178; Steph. Byz. s. Καρχηδών) as in the East (Thebes) for the legendary Cadmean colonies, for in both cases the Καδμεα is nothing else but the “ original”, the “ old ” town, from םדק, “ first,” “ old,” “ archaic,” “ primitive.” Also in Egyptian documents the place-name Ḳdm (already in the Pyramid texts, N. 868, cf. W. M. Müller, MVAG., 1912, pp. 294 f., written with the determinative of ḳdm, the foreign desertmountain-land), (Berlin Pap. 29), (Ḳd-m-i’-land, Papyr. Ramess., 53), (Ḳdm‘, Pap. Berl. 182, 219), the land of the Bedawin in the “ East”, where Sinuhe takes refuge (12th dyn.), refers to the Kedmah of the O.T., the Syrian and North Arabian desert.
page 65 note 2 These colonies are far older than could be supposed hitherto before we knew—through E. Forrer's discovery (s. “ Janus,” vol. i, p. 212)—that the tin-lands of the West were part of the world-empire of Sargon I of Assur(2150 b.c.). But even if they were not older than Karthago, the “ new town ” (חשדה:חרק), that is according to Philistos, one generation before the fall of Troy, or according to Timaios 814/3 b.c. (Meltzer, Gesch. d. Karth., ii, 149 ff.)—not to speak of Utica, הקיחע, the “ old ” town—this would be sufficient to account for the earliest mention of Καδμεονες in Homer (Ilias) and of their eponymous hero Κδμος in the Odyssy. In the native sources (inscriptions) of the Phœnicians no ethnic name whatever—not even Cana‘ani, let alone. Fnḫ. w-Φονικες or the like—is ever mentioned, as has often been noticed. In the O.T. the Benê Ḳedem or Ḳedmah or Ḳadmonim are the “ Eastern ” desert tribes on the other “ Transjordanic ” side of the “ Arabah ”. It was a similar error of mine to apply this limited local sense of the term to the explanation of the Καδμεονες in Greek tradition (Ḳenit. Weihinschr., p. 119), as if a student of mediæval history should confuse Austrians (of the German “ Ostmark”) with the Austrasians of the Francian empire (opp. Neustria, Neustrasia).
page 66 note 1 Cf. Hesych. s.v. Εὐρώπαׄ χώρα τς δσεως ἣ σκοτειν. See Sir G. Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Herodotus 2, 1862, vol. ii, p. 701. Lewy, Semit. Fremdw. i. Griech., 139. The apparent phonetic difficulty of the initial pseudo-diphthong of Εὐρώπα/η is not to be explained on the hypothesis that this εὐ- was pronounced like eu (-ö). It is the wellknown Æolian digamma Ϝ before ρ. Cf. ἄυρηκτος = ἄϜρηκτος for Attic ἄρρηκτος (Thumb, Hdb. d. griech. Dialekte, Heidelberg, 1909, 258). This accords perfectly with the tradition about the Cadmean settlements in the Ionic-Æolian northern parts of Greece (Thasos, Pangaion). The Greek π for Semitic ב is by no means unparalleled in loan-words (cf. ὕσσωπος = בלזאֵ, κρπασος Lat. carbasus, Pers. karbas Skr. karapāsa, A. Cuny, Rev. Ét. Grecqu., xii, 1910, 161 f). As a matter of fact, the Greek Π πῖ is palæographically the ancient Arabic (and Ḳenite) bâ Π, while the Greek βτα is certainly the Proto-Arabic mîm . As we know that the equivalence of m- and b- signs (cf. Merodach, Berodach, Mekka-Bekka, Meroë-Barua; Λαμρης - Λαβρης, τερβινθος - τρμινθος, τρμινθος etc.) is due to the occasional—specially Babylonian—v.pronounciation of m as well as of b (bh, bêt rafê), it follows that the (later) Greek was pronounced bh or v (as in modern Greek) by the Prehellenic Ægean people—the Greeks themselves had no spirant bh at that time (Cuny, l.c., 155 f.)—who first adopted the Phœnician alphabet. The mythic abduction of “ Europa” and the search for the goddess celebrated in Tyrus at the κακ Ψνη feast (Malal. Chron., ii, p. 31 Ddf.) refers to the heliacal setting of the evening star. It is a parallel to the Babylonian myth of Ištar's descent to Hades. In Crete the heroine is most appropriately married to one Asterios.
page 66 note 2 Targumic, see Levy, Nhbr. Wb. iii, 693.
page 66 note 3 Ibid., ii, 256a.
page 66 note 4 Muss-Arnold, 84b : itti a-çi-e šamši itti eribi šamši, ii, R 18, 42. It is very characteristic that the Greek Ἀση—first derived from Assyr. açū by Kiepert, Hdb. d. alt. Geogr., 26—corresponds only to the Babylonian or Assyrian pronounciation of אצי, not to the Phœnician or Aramean phonism, just as we have the East Semitic Βλος—and no Βααλ of any kind—in the genealogy of Cadmus. The Phœnician form *היצי—see the late Hebrew term, note 3—is, however, represented by the Egyptian equivalent of Ἀσα—thus Sethe, MVAG., xxi, 1916, 3302; it has nothing whatever to do with Alašia-Ἀλσσο-Cyprus, as v. Bissing has shown (Statist. Taf. v. Karnak, Leipz., 1897, pp. xxxvii, 47)—jsἰἰ (the because of ἰsj “ to go” = אצי “ to go out”) and by Ἰσαη (read Ἰαση !) sister of Φονιξ (= Fnḥ-w= “ Phœnician ”) and wife of Αἴγυπτος in the genealogy of Agenor, Κδμος, etc. (Pherekyd. Leros, Schol. Apoll. 3, 1186, p. 478K). The Accadian pronounciation of Βλος and Ἀση is a vestigium of the Assyrian dominion over Asia Minor and the whole Ægean in the time of Sargon I of Assur (2150 b.c.), see above, p. 652). It should also be noticed that the υ in the name Λιβη—the third continent of ancient Ionic geography—presupposes the -w plural of Egyptian Rb-w; the corresponding singular will be found in Λψς or Libs, the god of the south-western, the Libyan or African wind (cf. Scirocco, the wind from šrq !) beside Λβυς, the eponymous hero of Libya.
page 67 note 1 Cf. Gesen. Buhl., 16, 794b, s.v. קרש, ii.
page 67 note 2 Niddah, 51b; Levy, l.c., iii, 195b.
page 67 note 3 חרַזֵ and יחרז (= Σαρακηνο) occurs also in the OT. as a clan-name (Gen. xxxvi, 13–17, in the list of Edomite tribes), which is quite parallel to bene Ḳedem.
page 67 note 4 On the Phœnician colonization of Melos compare Thukyd., v, 81. Steph. Byz., s.v. Μλος, on the island being originally called Ββλις from its Phœnician colonists.
page 67 note 5 Cadmean settlement on Thera, Herodot., iv, 147. “ Seriphos,” where iron is produced in quantity even nowadays, is probably Phœnic. Ṣarephat = “ smithy” (cf. German “ Essen”). It is mentioned as a Cadmean colony by Tzetzēs Lycophr., 1206.
page 68 note 1 Taylor, loc. cit., ii, 29 f.
page 68 note 2 Cf. the name Δοριες on Taylor's No. 1. The monuments do not contain any intrinsic chronological features.
page 68 note 3 The use of Πελασγικ γρμματα are attributed to “ Linos”—the mythic hero of the flax-dirge—to Orpheus and to Homer's alleged teacher Pronapides of Athens by Diodor., iii, 67 (an Alexandrian of the second century b.c., after Dionys. Skythobrachion). As he mentions and amply quotes Διονσου πρξεις, written with these signs by “ Linos”, there must have existed a Pseudepigraphon with this title, which pretended to be copied from an old original in “ Pelasgic script”, even as the original of the forged “ Dictys Cretensis ” is said to have been written in “ Punic characters” in the Latin preface of the alleged translator and editor. Diodor., l.c., and Zeno Rhodiensis (Bekker, anecd. Gr., ii, 784, 1. 24ff., cf. Diod., v, 58) identify the “ Pelasgian script” with the Φοινικια γρμματα, differing only in so far as the one author attributes the real invention of them to “ Kadmos”, while the Rhodian local antiquarian makes the Phœnician learn it from the Pelasgians and reintroduce it under their own name in Hellas, where the memory of it had been destroyed by the Deucalionic flood. The Cretan grammarian Lukios of Tarrha (Zenobios, Leutsch 4, 45, s.v. Καδμια νκη) also knows of a rival script invented by Linos—according to Cretan antiquarians a native of Apollonia Cretensis (Steph. Byz., s.v. Απολλώνια)—which “ Kadmos ” is said to have suppressed by “ killing” Linos. As is presupposed in the first quoted theories, the Cretan linear script A—dated between 1800 and 1400 b.c. by Sir Arthur Evans—has, indeed, a certain resemblance in some signs (as ) with the alphabet (comparative table in Dussaud, civ. 2, pl. xii), while the later script B is again more piotographic. Only when we know the phonetic value of the Πελσγικα shall we be able to say how far the coincidence with the Phœnician signs is accidental or not.
page 69 note 1 Schuchhardt, Alt. Europa, Strassburg, 1919, p. 232.
page 69 note 2 Ed. Meyer, Gesch. d. Altert., ii, 281.
page 69 note 3 Nöldeke, Beitr., i, 582, and 136, has proved that the dark vowel of ἰτα–the Phœnician ḳōmes—is characteristic only of the Cananean dialect. Cf. Ḳenit. Weihinschr., p. 37, on דוי—with the vowel-sign וׄ, as I shall develop at greater length in the chapter on matres lectiones and original vowel-signs of the Proto-alphabet—for די on the Sinai Sphinx, Gardiner-Peet, No. 345. As to the τ instead of the expected δ—iōda in Coptic—it is easily explained from the Babylonian rules of sign nomenclature. *ἰωδ-τα is a “ two-value sign-name” for a sign with the values ID/T and T/DA. The interpretation of the final -α in ἄλφα βτα as an Aramean status emphaticus is quite obsolete. This α is the accusative -a frequently met with in the corresponding Babylonian lists of sign-names (Christian, MVAG., xviii, 1913, p. 41) beside the regular nominative -u and (rarer) genetive -i, which we find both adopted in the second half (μ, ν, πῖ) of the Greek sign-list.
page 70 note 1 Zeitschr. f. ägypt. Spr., xxx, 1892, 64.
page 70 note 2 Encycl. Bibl., 3556.
page 70 note 3 Papyrus manufactured from papyrus plants of the Euphrates near Babylon is mentioned by Pliny, n.h., xiii, 73.
page 70 note 4 Zimmern, akk. Lehnw. Leipz. Progr., 1914, p. 19.
page 70 note 5 The homonymous place in the Egyptian delta (Ctesias, 33) is probably an old fondaco of the Byblian papyrus trade, since no native Egyptian place-name is known which could be transcribed as Ββλος into Greek letters. The well-known Osirian myth seems to indicate that great papyrus rafts were floated down the Nile and by means of the natural current, which is still choking the Phœnician harbours with Nile mud, up the coast to Byblos, where the export-manufactures seem to have flourished.
page 70 note 6 Josephus speaks, e.g.of μολυβδινα χαρτα, “ writings on lead,” (not = “ tin-foil ! ” “ Stanniolpapier ” in German).
page 71 note 1 Babylonian scribes writing on vellum scrolls are reproduced by Messerschmidt, Or. Lit. Zeit., 1906, c. 187. Cf. Schroeder, Zeitschr. f. Assyr., xxx, 91. On the amelKuš-SAR “ scroll-writer” mentioned in the Warka-texts of the Seleucid era (VAT 9183, VAS, xv, 6) see Schroeder, OLZ., xx, 1917, 204, where reference is made to the Assurtexts VAT 10497 (KAV, i, No. 76), with records of white ox- and sheepskins delivered to certain priests, temple- and city-scribes (amelABA bit îli and amelABA ali). Egyptian writing on leather scrolls ( šfd.w) seems to be first mentioned under Thutmosis III (Sethe, Urk., iv, 661, 14–662, 6); cf. A. Alt., Paläst. Jahrb., x, 1914, p. 953. Cf. R. Pietschmann in Dziatzko's Sammlung biblioth. Arb., viii, 107.
page 71 note 2 Cf. G. Rawlinson, Herodotus, vol. ii, p. 269; Herzfeld, Klio, viii, 97. Βασιλικα διφθραι of the Royal Persian Record Office, Ctesias ap. Diod., ii, 32. A “ defterdar” is a functionary concerned with “ defter”, a “ defter-holder ” or “ -keeper”, a “ keeper of records” or “ chancellor”. In Abyssinian deftera = homo literatus (vulg. debtera, a canon of Levitic descent, a precentor; see Dillmann, Lex. Aeth., s.v.) is certainly not derived through the medium of the Greek language, but through the Sabæan directly from DUB-SAR (kind communication of Dr. E. Hommel).
page 71 note 3 See Boisacq's Etym. dict., Heidelberg, 1916, s.v. p. 191. Derivation from δψειν “ tanning”, does not explain the vowel i, not to speak of the supposed -ερα -αρα afformative.
page 71 note 4 Muss-Arnold, c. 265a, line 2, DIM-SAR ilNabium.
page 71 note 5 The equation is due to Lenormant. See P. Leander, Sum. Lehnworte im Assyr.; Akad. Abh. Upsala, 1913, p. 8. The ט is due to the late Assyrian change of tu into ṭu. The vowel in DUB was probably slightly deadened (French u), since duppu, “ tablet,” becomes ti-pi (read ti-vi) in Mitannian and Elamitic (Hüsing, OLZ., 1900, 402) and dip, “ to write,” in ancient Persian; hence — from duppani, “ tablets”—divan, “ chancery,” Skr. dippi, “ document” (also tifi-naṛ, Libyan for “ writing”, “ letters”, is tup-pi nari, “ (clay) tablets and stone-(tablets).” Cf. Tell Amarna Letters, London, 17, 36, anna tup-bi u narišu.). Also South Arabian ṭp=“ tablet”.
page 72 note 1 The resulting pronounciation þär for SAR compares well with Semitic יאח “ to draw”, “ to delineate”. This may well be a Sumerian loan-word from SAR, “ to write,” and proves that one of the four graphically undifferentiated Sumerian stems written SAR is really to be pronounced thar. DIB-SAR, translated “ writing utensils ” by Hommel, PSBA., 1893, xv, 292, should probably be read LU-SAR, “ sheep-worth,” and is a vegetable, as Professor Hommel kindly tells me.
page 72 note 2 See n. 2 on previous page.
page 72 note 3 The final a is the regular Sumerian genebive-suffix (casus obliquus sign). As Sumerian SAR alone would mean “ write ” and “ writer” and as the irregular syntactic position—like E-A for A-E Ἀς—is not unfrequent under the later Semitic influence, DUB-SARA could itself mean “ writer's tablet” or “ writing-tablet”. But in extant texts it always means “ writer of the tablet ”, “ tablet-writer ”.
page 72 note 4 The supposed analogy of Lat. littera from lino is an equally inadmissible etymology. See Walde, 2, s.v., p. 436. Neither has littera anything to do with διφθρα, as has been supposed. I think it might after all prove to be an -ar plural of Etruscan litu-us “ staff” (K. O. Müller, Etr., ii, 211) like stafs, Buch-staben; Egyptian md·w nṯr, “ staffs of the gods ” = hieroglyphs.
page 73 note 1 Diels, Fragm. Vorsokr., 2, p. 359, 35 (Demokritos).
page 73 note 2 Rythmus, Abh. Gött. Gesellsch., 1916, No. 1.