PREFACE. THIS book represents the labour of many years It was undertaken with the intention of compiling a brief account of recent discoveries as to the origin of the Alphabet, and its subsequent developments. Knowing how extensive was the literature of the subject, I did not suppose that there would be need or place for original research in connection with such a well-worn theme. It soon became manifest, however, not only that the History of the Alphabet had never been written, but that to some extent it had not even been discovered. Although many departments of the subject had been exhaustively discussed, I found that the origin of several important Alphabets would have to be investigated anew, while with regard to some of the best known scripts various collateral problems still awaited a solution. Such questions, arising one by one, necessitated unforseen and tedious investigation, the accumulation of many books, and the study of manuscripts and inscriptions in distant Libraries and Museums. Hence the delays in the appearance of a work, a considerable portion of which had been written when it was originally announced for publication in 1876. In dealing with a subject so extensive, and with materials so copious, it has proved no easy task to keep the book within any reasonable limits. Mere technical details have been as far as possible suppressed, or relegated to the notes, while opinions which are stated in a sentence, or data which are epitomized in a single column of a Table, frequently represent the results of prolonged research. The vast accumulations of epigraphic material which are now at command have been carefully sifted, so as to make the account of inscriptions and manuscripts selective, rather than exhaustive. It seemed better to attempt a somewhat full description of a few great cardinal monuments, rather than to give mere barren references to many of only secondary importance. Inopem me copia fecit is the excuse I have to plead for numberless deliberate but unavoidable omissions. If the book was to be complete, it was impossible that it should also be comprehensive. The difficulty of compressing essential details into small compass has been chiefly met by presenting the fundamental facts in tabular form. The numerous Tables of Alphabets, which will doubtless only be glanced at by the general reader, will be found by the real student to be of primary importance. It will probably be a matter of surprise that the ground taken up in this book should not already have been occupied. An explanation, however, is not far to seek. It is only within the last few years that extensive discoveries of fresh epigraphic material, the reproduction in trustworthy photographic facsimile of important records, the gradual recognition of those fundamental principles of Palæographic Science which are set forth in the concluding chapter of this book, together with the publication of valuable monographs dealing with small departments of the subject, have made possible a History of the Alphabet. It cannot, however, be affirmed that its history has hitherto been written. Existing treatises on the subject are either books belonging to the pre-scientific era, such as the works of Astle and Humphreys, or are wholly popular and uncritical, like Faulmann's Geschichte der Schrift, or mere outline sketches by competent writers, such as the essays of Maspero and Peile, or uncompleted fragments, like the brilliant chapters of the vast work which Lenormant, in despair, has abandoned in the middle of a sentence. But, although no general History of the Alphabet exists, limited departments of the subject have been diligently investigated by a host of specialists. One obscure point after another has been cleared up by the labours of scholars who have devoted themselves to the exhaustive treatment of special branches of epigraphy or numismatics. It may suffice to specify the labours of Blau on the coins of the Achæmenian satraps, of Levy on the Sinaitic inscriptions, or of |