threefold inscription shows the transition and simplification of the cuneiform writing very

well. The Babylonian column uses five hundred symbols, ideograms, phonograms, and

homophones; the Medic column is written in ninety-six pure syllabic signs; while the

Persian gives us the same history with thirty-six alphabetic signs, retaining only a few of

the primitive ideograms. Ideograms remain with us in English to-day. Certain parts of

the body were and still are standards of measurement. The hand, foot, bosom

(Anglo-Saxon foethem, i.e., "fathom," the distance between both arms extended); the

digits 1:, 2:, 3:, iiii. (latin digitus "a finger") and 5:, a representation of the closed fingers

and extended thumb, will suffice to illustrate this fact.

After great labour, by the good hand of God, the Persian inscription was found to

contain 42 characters, and that one recurring word at the beginning of each inscription

stood for the title "King." In 1802 a student named Grotefend succeeded in deciphering

the names of Hystaspes, Darius, and Xerxes. Sir Henry Rawlinson in 1837 succeeded in

drawing up a working alphabet of the Persian cuneiform characters. He took as his text

two short inscriptions identical throughout with the exception of two groups of signs in

each. These groups he conjectured contained the names of the Kings, and possibly the

King's father. It was further noticed that the (supposed) father in one inscription was the

(supposed) King in the other. History provided the names of the Kings of the period

under consideration, and upon examination the names Darius, Hystaspes and Xerxes

were indicated. The discovery of the Syllabaries and Grammars at Nineveh, and the

discovered affinity between Assyrian and Hebrew, were instrumental in the unlocking of

these records of Babylonian and Assyrian history. With this brief summary we must

conclude, but shall consider in detail some of the monumental evidences in our next

article.

The strange signs at the head of this article represent the name of one of the greatest

monarchs in the world's history, Nebuchadnezzar 2:

The Assyrian and Babylonian Room contains objects of interest from the times of

ancient Assyria down to Belshazzar, the last of the Babylonian kingdom. It will be seen,

therefore, that in directing attention to Nebuchadnezzar we are not following the

chronological order of the specimens. To do so would involve a much more careful

investigation than it is our purpose to follow in this series of articles. We intend to touch

lightly on these deep subjects, hoping thereby to provide a species of healthy recreation

in these by-paths of scriptural research. Babylon comes early in the history of the