Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURING 10 CENTURY : HITT1TES 115
each case can
sonant in common, while only one of them in
There are scarcely more than
stand for a simple consonant.
perhaps eight signs for simple consonants. Hence it would
appear that in
the Hittite tongue there were only eight consonants.
This, however, seems incredible. We are therefore
compelled to assume that as in the Cypriotic syllabary a
single sign could represent several consonants, all
belonging
to the same category, of course, as e. g. k and g, d and t.
Our phonetic decipherment will furnish the proof of this
assertion. Moreover, we find at most three vowel-signs,
one for a and o (and u ?)> another for e and /, whereas it is
evident from the Assyrian and Greek versions of proper
names belonging to the Hittite area, e. g., Melidd-u, Syennesis,
Kommag-ene, that the Hittites had more than three
vowels to dispose of.
Such transliterations therefore prove
that they were as saving with their vowels as with their consonants.
The above will serve to show in a measure how it was
possible for me to make out the system of the writing without
being able to read it in the proper sense. The contents
of the inscriptions, however, could in part be made out
even without this. A few hints may now be given to illustrate
it.
Inscriptions which we are forced to assume to
some king or other
belong to
dignitary frequently begin with a figure
consisting of a head with an arm attached, the hand pointing
(not to the mouth but) to the region between mouth
and nose.
If we suppose the hand to point to the mouth, a
reference to an analogous instance in the Egyptian writing
must at once suggest the meaning " to say " or " to speak
"
for this figure, as was assumed by Sayce at a later stage of
his decipherings :
" thus speaks such and such a king."
But if this supposition be ruled out, then according to all
analogy, the meaning " I " favored by Halevy and others,
and at an earlier stage by Sayce as well, seems about the