UC-NRLF M5D p j 3171 T4 1888 MAIN REESE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. (f / 'Received J&U&S Accession No. 8 Q .//. /.... Claxs No.. J/c M in i n^j' mmt f" i AND BY DR. TERRIEN DE LACOUPERIE. Professor of Indo-Chinese Philology, University College, London. LONDON : THE BABYLONIAN AND ORIENTAL EECORD. DAVID NUTT, 270, Strand. | TRUBNER & Co., Ludgate Hill. PARIS : ERNEST LEROUX, 28, Rue Bonaparte. +* MARCH, 1888. i 777 K OLD BABYLONIAN CHARACTERS AND THETR CHINESE DERfVATES. SUMMARY. 1. INTRODUCTORY. 1. Premature Suggestions as to a common ancestry, for the two writings. 2. Similar suggestions. 3. Th.ey could not have any value, as the conditions of the problem were st'll unknown. 4-. My discovery, contrary to these suggestions, in 1880, of a late derivation of the Chinese writing from that of Babylon through Elain. 5. The present paper. 6. Aid sought for from the Babylonian side. 7. Further uid. 8. The Chinese sources. II. THE ALLEGED HIEROGLYPHS OF BABYLON. 9. Efforts made towards their elucidation. 10. Restoration of the signs to their pictorial position. 11. Hieratic characters, not hieroglyphs, appear on - ,.' the oldest monuments of 4000 B.C. 12. Doubtful authority of the pictorial fragments from Nineveh. 13. Their' pictures are not the prototypes of the characters they explain. 14. Some instances. 15, 16. Further instances. 17. It is an insufficient proof. III. COMPARING BABYLONIAN AND CHINESE WRITINGS. 18. Useful- ness of the comparison. 19. For processes of combining phonograms and ideograms. 20. For processes of transformation. 21. In view of their historical connection 22. Ancestors of the Chinese learned to write about 2500 B.C. 2o. Difference of written material. 24. Chro- nological conditions. 25. Some early Chinese sign? unknown in sound or in meaning. 26. Unnatural forms of some signs for plants and trees. 27. Because they were derived from old Babylonian cunei- form characters. 28. Survivals of the cuneiform characters in Chinese. 29. Chinese tradition about the cuneiform writing of Dungi of Chaldsea. 30. Small number of early Chinese characters. IV. ANCIENT CUNEIFORM CHARACTERS AND THEIR CHINESE DERIVATES. 36. The old Chinese symbols, though of late derivation, will n r H THEIR CHINESE DERIVATES. 5 characters. The Chinese symbols are classed therein according to 76 finals and the four tones. There is a Japanese edition, arranged according to the usual system of the 214 keys. Next to this work the y^^^^M Luh-shu-fiin-hiy by Fu-lwan-siang in 1751, in 14 books, similar to that of Min Tsi-kih, but more complete at the expense of accuracy and arranged by the 214 keys. The jg *f ^ Tchuen tze ivei, published in 1691 by Tung-Wei-fu, is also a pala30graphical dictionary by keys, but no references are given therein as to the sources of the forms, which however, are accu- rately given. The JE^f ^H San tze sh * h ^ n ff (1806) where are found the remaining fragments of the Sacred Books as engraved on stone in the oldest forms of characters at the beginning of the Christian era. Several large collections of inscriptions reproduced in fac-simile, such as the Sung yu fu tchai tchung ting kw'an shih, by Yil-fu of the Sung dynasty (Xlltli cent.); the Tsih ku tchai tchung ting y k'i kw'an shih by Yueii-yuen (1804); the Kin shih tso pien (1805), the Kin shih so (1821), the Kin ting sze ts' ing ku kiun (1751); &c. I have also made use of the Shwoh Wen, the first dictionary worthy of the name, for the form and meaning of characters by Hii Shen in the first century of our era, 12 and of several other works.jj 3 II. THE ALLEGED HIEROGLYPHS OF BABYLONIA. 9. Some efforts have been made by several scholars towards the elucida- tion of the pictures which are generally supposed to underlie the hieratic characters of Babylonia. Dr. Oppert 14 , among the first in the field, gave valuable suggestions, some of which remain true to the present day. The same must be said of Mr. W. St. Chad Boscawen in his paper on the primitive civilization of Babylonia 15 in 1879, and other papers. In the same year, the Rev. William Houghton gave his paper On the hieroglyphic or picture origin of the characters of the Assyrian syllabary, in which he. attempted, rather prematurely, 16 the explanation of about fifty-four cha- racters. I am afraid many of his explanations and suggestions, however ingenious, must now be left aside. They rest too often on wrong premises. Serious advance has been made since that time in the decipherment of ancient characters, and much more of sound material is now at the disposition of the investigator. The decipherment of the inscriptions from Gudea, and especially those from Ur-Ba-u, Uru-kagina, En-anna-du, &c,, brought from Tello have largely contributed to this happy result. Linear or hieratic shapes were formerly too easily accepted, either by inference from the archaic Babylonian forms, either from sham archaisms on seals of late date, or from wrong identifications. 17 False, or non-genuine, forms 6 THE OLD HA15YLON1AN CHARACTERS liave suggested false explanations. The greatest danger in the cases of explaining well-ascertained forms is for our own imagination to get the better of our good sense, and overstep the limits of any justifiable in- ference. The latest scholar who has ventured to explain the figure of some characters (about fifteen) is Mr. G. Bertin in his paper On the origin and development of the cuneiform 8i/llabary but the ingenious Assyriologist has not escaped this danger, as we shall have occasion to show. 10. As to the position in which the archaic characters must be restored in order to permit an inkling of their original picture and its natural position, there are differences of opinion among the decipherers. The late G. Panthier was an echo of the current opinion when he stated that the cuneiform characters were laid down the head to the left. 19 Mr. G. Bertin repeated last year the same statement with emphasis, declaring that there is no exception to the rule. 20 But this statement is largely contra- dicted by facts, as we shall see further on. Mr. T. G. Pinches was satisfied to say that the process was generally needful. 21 The Rev. William Houghton and Prof. A. H. Sayce have not fettered themselves in their explanations with any absolute rule of the kind, and though many of their suggestions cannot remain, the two scholars were so far right in this respect. 22 / 11. The pictorial stage of the Babylonian characters is not represented <(in the oldest monuments hitherto known, some of which date most probably not long after the beginning in those countries, of civilisation which was introduced, according to tradition, from the Persian Gulf. The oldest characters belong to the hieratic stage, and indeed to a stage of hieratic rather remote from the hieroglyphic period. The latest dis- coveries must have disillusionised the Assyriologists in this respect. For my part I think that the pictorial stage has never existed in Chaldea, and probably nowhere as an independent body of writing, direct and sole antecedent of the Babylonian characters. We shall come across manv cases which justify my inference. 12. The only objection to this view is that which rests on the fragments of one or two tablets found at Nimroud, so much spokenjof, and at least for one fragment, published several times. Some old forms of characters are therein explained, so to speak, by pictures of objects and signs, as well as other characters equally old and probably older. -But let 119 examine the value of the document, and much of its importance will vanish. For instance, we see that several objects explain one single AND THE I II CHINESE DKRIVATES. 7 character. Now surely this simple fact excludes the possibility of their pictures being the original form of the character explained. It docs not seern to belong to a work of historical etymology, The work seems most likely to have been a sort of guide-book intended in its way to make intel- ligible the various meanings engrafted upon the characters by the several causes which modify and increase, in course of time, the acceptations attached to ideograms. Or, perhaps the author himself did not know. We are often inclined to concede to the ancient writ- ers more knowledge than they probably possessed, and we need be more careful than we generally are before trusting implicitly the state- ments of the ancients. A writer in cuneiform is not necessarily more trustworthy than a Persian. 13. Anyhow, the most clear of the pictorial characters on the tablet do not agree with anything we know of the various forms of the characters, hieratic or archaic, and the most strenuous efforts of im- gination have been exerted in vain to find an impossible connection between these figures and the ascertained meanings. 14. j? of the pictorial tablet 23 , should this tablet be trusted, is just turned over in an inscription 24 of Gudea . M- and a cylinder of a patesr 5 ; it became 7""^J m ancient Babylonian and -3^ i n Assyrian. Now the picture and the character do not agree. The latter is apparently composed of the symbols for ' female ' with another character, and this symbol does not appear in the hieroglyph, which is simply a figure of two branches of palm tree or the like. The same remark applies to some other instances of the same tablets In the same fragment as the previous character, second column appear two signs which are explained each by four pictures. The first is in Assyrian, Hjf , a:, to go out. to appear. 2 * The four objects which explain it on the tablet represent, as far as I can make out, the body of a chariot, two wheels, (each of the two with ^ subscribed), another two wheels with the axle-tree, and a, fourth figure which I cannot assimilate. The second character also explained by four objects is the character Assyrian where, cannot be said to be an established fact. This pictorial ancestor 'writing is apparently more remote in time than the introduction of * the writing in Babylonia, which was then apparently at the hieratic stage. ft was not introduced from the upper country of Elam (cf. infra 46), AND THEIR CHINESE DERIVATES. /but most likely from the Persian Gulf; and therefore the Babylonian ! writing would not have ever been hieroglyphic, but was derived from a ^pictorial system of writing still unknown. In our opinion this older writing was that of the most ancient Kushite sea-coast traders, but this question requires a separate article. III. GENERAL REMARKS. 18. Much useful information may be derived from a comparison of the cuneiform and Chinese writings ; the written characters of China ( in their oldest forms, as I have already stated and shown elsewhere in I a general way, being simply a derivation of the ancient but not of (^the oldest forms of those of Babylonians. 19. They may be compared, for the sake of illustrating the processes of combining phonetism and meaning in an ideographical writing. This has been done by most Assyriologists. For instance, there is, (I) the association of an ideogram as a determinative of a class of things or ideas employed without reference to its own particular sound/ with another or more ideograms used as phonograms with or without reference to their own particular meaning. The process is known in Egyptian, in Assyro-Babylonian and in Chinese. Only a few at first, the number of mute determinatives grew in proportion of the exten- sion of notions and the necessity of new words to express them. The most frequently employed reached 43 in Egyptian, 70 in Babylonian 39 and 180 in Chinese, 40 There are in both writings many instances of (II) Association of ideograms without any reference to their respec- tive sounds, and read by the different word which the meaning of their association suggests. 20. There are also other processes common to both writings, indifferent to any historical connection, which, as far as I am ware, have not as yet been pointed out. We meet with, in their respective evolution, not a few instansces of : (III) a substitution of characters by analogy -of shape, of sound, or of meaning. And there is : (IV) the curious new use of old ideograms, with or without reference to their sounds, simply from the analogy of their shape to supply the want of hieroglyphs which they are fancied to represent ; this being a system of writing-sparing which did not prevent the making of altogether new symbols and hieroglyphs, of which there are numerous cases in the 10 THE OLD BABYLONIAN CHARACTERS two writing,-. In both writings also, we see that (V) a change in the natural position of an ideogram, isolate o composition, implies with it a corresponding change in the meaning. We shall meet instances of all these five processes and several others less important, in the course of our Remarks. 21. But a comparison of the written characters of both countries in view of establishing their historical connection is another affair. The subject calls for some preliminary remarks of importance. The ancient characters of Chaldea and China cannot be compared one with the other in an off hand manner and on quite the same footing as there are serious difficulties in the way. The Ku-Wen or ' old symbols' of China have been, in that country of tradition, carefully preserved in some paleographical works and collections of inscriptions which are simply admirable. 41 It is there, and there only, that scholars can find the original written characters of the Chinese 42 which have nothing to do with the rude and spurious pictures published as such in many European books. 43 22. The Bak tribes brought the knowledge of writing into N. W. China in the twenty-third century B. c., but we do not know how long they had been acquainted with it in their former seats, west of the Hindu Knsh. Certainly, not from the beginning, and they had no share in the invention. Slight details in the traditions seem to indicate that it was some time before the dismemberment of the Elam confede which led to their migration to the East. 44 Chronology is therefore an important condition of comparison between the two writings. 23. There are more conditions to be respected. The earliest Chines characters wore cut incuse on bamboo bark tablets and other regetabl material; 45 they were composed of strokes more or less curved and more or less thick at one end and thin at the other. 46 Those of Chalda?a that are now preserved were cut incuse on stone or impressed on clay, and they are composed of straight strokes cuneiform, which conceal much of their former rude outlined pictographs. Reed tablets 47 , papyri 48 , and perhaps other vegetable materials were also employed in W. Asia to v/rite upon. But no specimen has been preserved, nor any copy or imitation of the style of current writing which their use imply. Of course it could not be the lapicide or monumental, but a less rigid, more roundish and cursive style of writing the characters. And these less angular forms of the symbols were more favourable to the preservation of a certain amount of the ideographical or pictorial spirit, AND THK1R CHINESE DElllVATES. 11 if I may say so, of the characters wheresoever there was any possibility. The similarity of materials employed by the ancestors of the Chinese shows that it is in the latter style that they were taught to write, and the resemblances, so peculiar in their characteristics between the ' old symbols ' of China and those of Chaldrea bear fully this inference. 24. In fine, due allowance must be made for the respective ages and styles of the two writings compared, and the prototypes of the Chinese ku~wen must be sought for in those of Chaldsea of which the knowledge was ex- tended into Elam,andnot in the straight linear characters which, sometimes derived from the seals, may be and often are unfaithful archaisms ; 49 nor must they be sought for in the most ancient characters of the inscriptions - which go back to 4000 B.C. They are to be found in the ancient cuneiform \ characters, with the necessary allowance due to the fact that the ancestors / of the Chinese were taught to write them in a cursive and roundish hand. ' 25. We shall have procfs of the fact all along our investigations. But we must not forget an important feature in the history of both writings : it is the relative plasticity of forms of the symbols which led to riot a few mistakes and confusion between signs of different origin and signification. Another interesting peculiarity concerns the ideograph- ism of the early Chinese characters ; the meanings of not a few are , lost, and it is not at all certain that the leaders of the Bak tribes when \ they learned to write in Western Asia have ever known them. It is ) not at all improbable ; and we might even be more affirmative on this point, \ that some written characters were taught to them with phonetic values / only. Moreover, some of these characters, originally pictorial, 50 though at a \ very remote time, had then lost beyond recovery all remnantof their hiero- ^ glyphic appearance, and their sense was therefore open easily to alterations and misinterpretation. Accordingly not a few of the early Chinese symbols,' even when their ideographical value being known can still be fancied in their shape, are altogether different from what they would be, should their hierogiyphical ancestry have been regular and in China, which it ( was not. Everything shews that the primitive writing in China was an old and decayed one, and if I may be permitted to say so, a second-hand one. 26. Let us, for instance, look at the Chinese 'old symbols' of plants and ve- getables interesting under several respects, and we may remark from the pe- culiar forms of many of them thatithey are not the direct representatives of former and faithful pictographs. They are unnatural. Their branches or leaves, as the case may be, are not turned upwards as truth to nature would generally require, and as we can still recognise that such was the case in the 13 THE OLD BABYLONIAN CHARACTERS most archaic symbols of Chaldaea. In the Chinese characters they are com- monly turned, either all downwards, or some upwards and the others downwards. The similarity and identity of the Chinese with the Chaldeean ones is however glaring to the eye3 of the palseograph, but there is a gap between the two. The Chinese are more deteriorated than the Chaldaean, and their deterioration is not a regular one, but looks like a second stage of corruption. Its characteristics suggest a derivation from a peculiar and simpler style of writing than the archaic cuneiform. 27. Now the foregoing general remarks explain away the difficulty. The peculiar deterioration which underlies the subsequent alteration which was caused by the cursive and roundish characteristic of the writing is that which happened when the cuneitic shape ot the strokes composing the Chaldsean characters assumed a more pronounced form, and led these characters to a corruption of their older pictorial aspect. Looked under that light the unnatural appearance exemplified in the Chinese derivates loses its eccentricity, and can be easily explained. The ideographs in cuneiform strokes, deteriorated as they forcibly were through the stiffness of these strokes and from the wear and tear of ages, when written in a cursive style were necessarily different from what they were otherwise or formerly, and the imitation of the cuneiform shape led to the peculiar disposition of the strokes which ought to have pictured the branches or leaves of the plants or trees. 28. On the other hand, this explains also the many traces of the cuneiform apex which like survivals are met with in a not inconsiderable number of the Chinese oldest characters. No doubt can be entertained that the leaders of the Bak tribes the ancestors of the Chinese, when settled on the northern borders of Elam, south of the Caspian Sea, were made acquainted with the cuneiform writing. Something of this know- ledge has been handed down in their legends concerning the beginning of writing. These legends are of two sorts : there are those which refer to the invention of writing, and which from their own avowal concern a time long anterior to their own existence, but all of them refer to the /same peculiarity of the written characters. ( 29. Shen-nung, the King Husbandman of Let-sam (Larsam), whose Chinese legend is a repetition of that of Sargon, with whom the com- / parison of the Chinese version of the Babylonian canon shows that he must be identified, 5 ' is reputed to have used signs in the shape of tongues of fire to record facts. 32 The story was told with indifferent details in 525 by Tchao-tze, Prince of the State of Luh, who was well acquainted with AND THEIR CHINESE DERIVATE8. 13 the traditions of former times, and duly recorded in the Tso-tchuen of Tso Kiu-Ming, a younger disciple of Confucius. 53 At the time of Shen- "\ nung-Sargon, the ancestors of the Chinese were not acquainted with the \ art of writing, and made use only of knotted words, otherwise quippos. It was long afterwards, in the time of Nakhnnte, sinice Nai Hwang-ti,\ that Dunkit=the Chaldasan Dungi, taught the ancestors of the Chinese \ to write. Observing the marks on the soil of claws of birds and animals, he ascertained that by lines objects could be distinguished one from another. 65 This remarkable tradition so much to the point appears in several works older than the Christian era, as an echo of primitive times. I take it from a later work, that of Hii-shen, who in the first century of our era, made a critical study of the history of writing in his country, and mentioned it in his own introduction to his valuable dictionary the Shwoh-wen. A description of the primitive writing, preserved in the works of Ts'ai Yung, 5 6 a paloeographist of the second century A..D, 57 says that "it was like drops of rain finely drawn out and freezing as they fall." This writing was said to have been seen on the back of a tor- toise, a probable allusion to the somewhat curved form of the clay tablets All this evidence establishes most clearly that the ancestors of the Chinese were made acquainted with the cuneiform writing some 2500 B.C. in a region at proximity of Elam and Chaldasa. Nakhunte was the traditional name of the kings of Elam, and there are in the early Chinese institutions not a few similarities with those of that country. 30. We must dispel at once any objection which m':ght forcibly be made by scholars unfamiliar with the history and evolution of the Chinese writing based upon the enormous number of Chinese characters of the Middle Kingdom. This number is the result of a steady growth from about 10,000 existing at the time of the Han dynasty, otherwise circa the Christian era. And those ten thousand, exactly 9353, was the out- come of centuries of civilization, of literary work, and increase of knowledge. It was the development of a slender basis consisting only of a few hundred , about 500, characters. Chinese tradition attributes to Dunkit (modern Tsang-hieh) 58 the Chaldsean Dungi, mentioned in the previous paragraph, ) the creation of 640 characters, including some compounds. 5 9 The figure' is not much different from that which a survey of the ancient Assyro- Babylonian writing shows to have been used in Chaldsea. Prof. A. H . Sayce's Grammar gives many entries ; M. J. Menant 496, MM. Amiaud 14 THE OLD BABYLONIAN CHARACTERS and Mechineau in their recent pal geographical work give a great total of 556, out of which 326 only have hitherto been traced hack to ancient forms. In Egyptian the number of hieroglyphs was also about 500. IV. ANCIENT CUNEIFORM CHARACTERS AND THEIR CHINESE DERIVATES. 31. Though derived from the third stage of evolution (including the unrepresented pictorial stage) of the Babylonian characters, the Old symbols of China will sometimes prove very useful in suggesting what things or ideas were pictured by their antecedents. The Chinese have preserved the original meaning of a good many, though not of all their primitive characters, when they were taught to them. Generally these meanings and often these sounds agree with what is known of their Babylonian prototypes, sometimes they do not. The discrepancies may have resulted from different causes, such as the adoption of an old symbol for anew ideogram, or a regional variant in the sense and sound f of the character. However identical to that of Chaldea may have been the civilization of Elam with which the ancestors of the Chinese were made acquainted, we may be certain that there were some differences, some of which would thus be revealed to us through the traditions carried to and preserved in the Flowery Land. 32. There is also one serious lesson which we learn from Chinese palaeography, and which must be registered here for the sake of Baby- lonian palceography. It is the great imprudence of venturing to ana- lyse the characters in view of historical etymology, without having made sure of the oldest form or forms of the symbols, as that plurality of forms, is often explaining or suggesting something of the idea of the character. And also the necessity of escaping from the attractive tendency of de- composing whole and indecomposable symbols into parts, only because there is an apparent analogy of forms between these parts and in- dependent characters. 33. Prudence and diffidence are the more so wanted in dealing with the archaic and old Babylonian ideograms, that notwithstand- ing the stiffness of the cuneitic strokes, there was a certain amount of plasticity and apparent looseness in writing these characters. Under the style of the scribes they had not the rigidity and absoluteness of forms, which would seem to have been required in so peculiar a system of writing. The scribes, in writing their characters at that remote period, seem more to have kept in mind an ideal shape which they tried to imitate than to have written mechanically as we do our characters. And AND THEIK CHINESE DERI VAXES. 15 this would be at a pace with the well-known existence, at the same time as the cuneiform style on stone and clay, of another style of writing the characters in a more current and roundish way on reed tablets and papyri. so 34. The original things or ideas represented or suggested by the hieratic characters are not always impossible to recognize, though pretty often there is no clue between the possible former shape they suggest and their meaning. In a large number of the cases which can be made out for explaining the archaic cuneiforms they must be turned round so that their left side is the top in hieratic when the text was always, as in Chinese, written in columns from top to bottom, and thence from right to left. 35. For instance, the hieratic : (MI, a bird of which it may have been intended to suggest the head, beak, body, and tail on the left, with the ground under it, it became ^J- in ancient Babylonian, and >-f^y in Assyrian: early Chinese, *rt~$ where we recognize the two wedges across of the Baby- lonian form, and the two strokes downwards. Modern Chinese J| o, a blackbird, a crow. 61 & se, wheat, or an ear of corn with awns has become ^J^J and $ , in archaic Babylonian, whence the Chinese j& modern $c, and ^ m Assyrian. 62 The Chinese is derived from the second Babylonian form, the left to the top. s*7 antl w du, child, son, tur, little, suggesting the legs, arms, and head of a child, became *<|_~_ in archaic Babylonian, and tg- in Assyrian. The derivate similar in early Chinese has become ^ tih, mod. tze, son. 6 3 36. tj~ Mak, ma, a boat. 6 * This form, narrowed for the sake of writing in columns,' is exactly a figure of the boats, which are represented in the sculptures. It became ^ffl in Assvrian > and H had become 2& in archaic Babylonian from which ^ the old symbol of the Chinese* was derived.* 6 Zik is indicated as another sound for the same character; in Chinese it was tchuk or teufcjthe sound fu or vu existed also 67 but it required the addition of a phonetic ; both were used in the archaic iii Saigon and Gudea's inscriptions |s became ^k Haminu- rabi's old Babylonian and ^-^ in Assyrian. The readings are m, sub, sup, and the meanings to present, to give, to hold,* 9 agree with the picture of the two arms, holding or presenting. si the eye, has become and remained

-^. It is also used for the Assyro- Babylonian sattu year. The figure is that of a root of tree or plant, and it means ' renown, glory, year.' In Chinese the old symbol de- rived from it, is -^N a year, modern 4 . As to the sounds the ancient Chinese said muh for * tree' and sot for 'year' with different cnaracters. 37. J~| in Gudca's texts J"L ff 1 '^ i z - wood, became in old Babylonian f, in early Chinese A split wood; modern {. 'X* in Gudea's texts, # and ^ in old Babylonian, replaced left to top in early Chinese %_ , modern, dj mountai n. It was employed for country by the ancient Chinese writers as in the cuneiform texts. V female, in Gudea's texts, ^ , whence the early Chinese c, modern fa woman; Assyrian J^. Sounds: Akkadian rale, old Chinese njok. OL gut, bull, in old Babylonian 5^> whence, with the left to top \& in early Chinese, modern, ^ ngo, same meaning. 38- ^j nu, not, &c. in old Babylonian a similar form to the hieratic, and also >^_ whence, left to top, *T in early Chinese with the same meaning; modem /fc^ Assyrian *^-. ^7 ul, rw, du, similar form in old Babylonian, in early Chinese ^, modern fjj tui answering, fronting, Assyrian ^f*. PT kin, book, in old Babylonian f sf\ in early Chinese the abridged I/ _ Ij3\[ ^i f /y. I orm -L modern j|g king, book, sacred book. <^ man, nis, in old Babylonian and Assyrian; in early Chinese /^ pan. modern J ping, ' icicle.' Several meanings in Assyro-Babylonian, some still unknown, some known, do not agree with the sense attributed in Chinese to the character which may have been borrowed for the sound only. 39- v^ Akkadian du, to make, in old Babylonian *^-\ in early Chinese Jy da, modern /f~ ts'ai, power to make. ")f||< su, the hand, in old Babylonian and modern Assyrian ^Ef ; in early Chinese & seu, modern ;EjL, same meaning. The form of the Chinese derivate is somewhat remote, but the sounds are similar- AND THEIR CHINESE DERIVATE8. 17 JSl ik, gal, ' to be, pillar, door '; in old Babylonian among several forms more complicate 3B-> , in early Chinese H. and J? go> modern fi hu, door. 84 A- ta, from, in, old Babylonian tf>d , early Chinese JL tu, modern fj tee, from.85 Chinese lexicographers explain it as the ' nose,' the first part of the child spontaneously formed in the mother's womb, a view, shared by the Egyptians. In China the ancestor of a family is 'the nose', and the youngest descendant is ' the ear ' of the family. 40. u , the head, old Babylonian VJl * m sak, early ST Chinese thi, modern Jit pi, the nose. The similarity of the derivate is very striking though quite peculiar for a nose; as said about the previous character, the head of a family is the nose of the family. The Chinese have appro- priated the symbol to its modern meaning. Assyrian *Tyy$:. 86 /J the mouth; the figure represents the head and the neck, like the preceding, with the addition of the beard, in order to call attention to the mouth. In old Babylonian *Jjf-} ka, in early Chinese Jp gib, the head, modern | hie. Assyrian -j^J. 87 41. The following characters do not require to be turned: ^ the heart, in old Babylonian ^ , whence old Chinese \? , mod- ern fa Assyrian ]]]. Sounds: sag Akkadian, sab Sumerian, sam old Chinese, modern sin, Assyrian libbu.* s A to cut, to divide, in [old Babylonian ^ , whence the old Chinese ^ a knife, modern JJ, Assyrian ^.89 42 . The following were used in both directions : ^ and ^ on the oldest monuments, J^ and several other forms in old Babylonian, 2 in early Chinese, modem j^, Assyrian <^vT] abow; Akkadian ban, old Chinese kung 9 * H on the Stele des Vautours, J7 in Gudea's texts, 'foot,' is one of the characters which, like the preceding, appear to have been turned to the left or to the right, as survivals of a former system of boustroph- edon. In old Babylonian f~*f , in early Chinese ( ^ The sounds were du and gub in Akkadian, to in early Chinese. Assyrian ~. 9 3 They were turned upwards, left to top, on the ancient monuments against the exigencies of their natural and pictorial position. Another instance is found in |J~j lik, a dog, similar in form in old Babylonian and Assyrian y| T, 94 which cannot be explained, when turned in the same way. 93 Whereas, if we look upon the horizontal position as its natural one, keeping in mind that the characteristic features of a dog are his head and tail on the body, while the head only does not characterize a dog, we may without great effort of mind compare this skeleton hieratic character to the Chinese old symbol >^ , with the addition of an underline for the ground. The unprimitiveness of the arrangement of the original characters in columns is shown by many facts of the kind, and it may be remarked that the characters which are placed in a wrong position are those which had lost any appearance of their original pictorial features. The fish (A.M. 129) which remained hieroglyphic was preserved in its original position, while the lingam (A.M. 24) was wrongly placed alone or in the compounds. The following characters, numbered according to the pala?ographical work of MM. Amiaud and Mechineau : 38, 106, 144, 240, 252, 253, 258, 277, 278, 285, 288, 289, 291, &c. do not require to be turned to be understood, and many of those of this list which appear the left to top on the oldest monuments of Chaldaea could not have been so in their primitive and pictoria position. 44. ^ ^ . In Chinese jjjj sien; an ancient appellation of woman, of which the old form has not yet been found, composed of woman and mountain, as in old Babylonian. 97 The meaning of the latter as well as that of the following symbol is rather eloquent against the unproved theory of an origin of the writing in the mountainous region of Elam, proposed by Prof. A. H. Sayce. iru, Assyrian ardu, servant. 9 8 An early compound ideogram of mountain, and an old character for ' man,' 99 which was mixed very early AND THEIR CHINESE DERIVATE8. 19 with the old form of J^f 'male.' In Assyrian ^y. lPO We only know a modern form of the Chinese j[]j similarly composed with the meaning of divine recluse and genii. The Babylonian meaning agrees with the remark made about the preceding character. $7 am, Assyrian t^ rimu, wild bull, is a compound ideogram of 'bull,' and 'mountain'; 101 both characters were mentioned above. The symbol was not borrowed by the ancestors of the Chinese. 46. The fact that the disparaging stamp which the character for mountain infuses into this last compound and the two preceding ones is unknown to them seems to be rather significant. It agrees well with what might have been expected from the fact that they obtained their knowledge of writing from the mountainous Elam where no con_ temptuous meaning could be attached to the symbol for mountain. On ) the other hand, it is another case of improbability against the theory \ of a Highland origin of the Babylonian. While it possesses primitive symbols for " boat' and for ' wind' represented by an inflated sail 102 , there ) are none for river, nor for ' bear' (it is a compound), all peculiarities ? shared by its Chinese derivate. The unique symbol for 'mountain' and | * land' reminds us that for seafarers or islanders, land always looks I mountainous. Besides, it may be worth noticing that the sign for water |J ai has also the meaning of father, 103 and this fact, which does not seem to be attributed to any late cause of graphical or phonetic attrac- tion, looks primitivelike. All this confirms the origin of the civilized \ fathers from (the islands of) the Persian Gulf, as related by tradition. 47. These comparisons of old Babylonian cuneiform characters with those of the early Chinese which have been derived from them could be continued for a much larger number of symbols. We have only utilized here a portion of the many notes compiled by us in view of an extensive comparison when leisure and health permit it. The signs for brother, region, dark, officer, tribe, augure, stone, and bricks, already compared on the plate of my Early History of Chinese Civilization in 1880, and rather badly illustrated and described there, stand good but require a revise on a subsequent occasion. The signs of the points of spaco are illustrated and compared 104 in my paper on The shifted cardinal points; from Elam to early China. V. CONCLUSIONS. 48. Everything must come to an end, even this paper, however inte- resting it may be for us to continue these comparisons, inasmuch as the printing of so many new types is a difficult matter. We hope to be able to continue them some day, net only with the object of bringing forward 1:0 THE OLD BABYLONIAN CHARACTERS new evidence in favour of its conclusions, but also and more especially in order to illustrate the processes of phonetic composition proper to the Babylonian symbols, and those employed in imitation by the ancient Chinese. With the help which the early Chinese symbols are entitled to offer, we may hope also to learn more about the primitive Babylonian symbols. Years ago, from the sole internal comparison of these early Chinese characters, we were enabled to draw several inferences as to the characteristics of the writing from which they were derived, 105 Several of these inferences prove to refer even to a period older than that of the Chinese derivation, and known only from survivals. We shall try to establish them finally in a later paper. 49. The instances met with in the previous pages have given us already a certain amount of information concerning the primitive characters of Babylonia. We have seen that the oldest signs lately deciphered do not, in appear- ance, come much nearer to the pictorial period than did the archaic cuneiform characters stripped of their cuneitic features. In many cases, as shown by the various interpretations they received, any possible relation to a figurative shape, should it have ever existed, seems to have been irretrievably lost in the most remote times. The fragments of tablet or tablets found at Nineveh, where figures are given as explanations of characters, cannot be looked upon otherwise than as parts of a sort of guide-book to illustrate the meanings of some cha- racters, without any archaeological purposes, nor any reference to their / historical etymology. So that it is not at all unlikely, considering the \ remote date of the oldest signs known (4000 B.C.) that the pictorial period -had not taken, place in Chaldsea, and that the writing has beembrought therein, at the hieratic stage. A serious change in the writing took place and senses of characters appear to have been lost between the times of Uru-Sagina and En- anna-du and that of Dungi. Some characters in the remotest time were used to left or to right, and therefore shew survivals of a former system of boustrophedon as in Egyptian. When a stringent system of writing the characters in reg- ular columns from top to bottom became usual, the symbols were not all turned in the same way; some of them kept their pictorial position, whereas some others for certain reasons which escape us were placed in a wrong position. The size and shape of the symbols have had probably some influence in the matter, as well as the loss of their pic- torial value, unless it be a survival of a former period. AND THEIR CHINESE DERIVATES. 21 As to the native country of the writing, it was not a mountainous j region ; the writing had been brought from the Persian Gulf, as Ber- < osus the historian of Chaldea relates it. These inferences have been obtained with the great help which the Chinese derivates of the Babylonian characters afford on their position' value and meaning. 50. We shall now resume the conclusions of the present paper as to its purpose, namely, the derivation of the Chinese writing from West- ern Asia: We have had occasion to see that the oldest symbols of ChinaX are not primitive; the writing was already old and decayed when the ancestors of the Chinese were taught to write at the time of Dungi of Chaldaea (about 2500 B.C.) in the country north of Elam. These ancestors, ] the leaders of the Bak tribes, learnt to write from a people inhabiting a s mountainous country, or in such a country. The number of characters of this writing was about 500 (as in Babylonia). Many of these had lost all possible relation to a pictorial origin. They were taught to engrave on bark of trees, with strokes thick at one end and thin at the other, in a rounded and cursive form, the old cuneiform characters of Babylonia. The Chinese symbols correspond sometimes to the hieratic characters, probably through some form of cuneiforms unknown in the inscriptions hitherto deciphered and preserved in the ancient writing, but the derivation is most often shown to have taken place from the cuneiform shapes. The comparison of the two writings show that the Babylonian characters, notwithstanding their cuneiform strokes and like the Chinese signs, display some plasticity and elasticity in the hands of the scribes. The Chinese have preserved some legends of their beginnings, which show most clearly that their ancestors in W. Asia became acquainted with the cuneiform writing. The Chinese have often preserved the original sounds attached to the characters at the time when they were taught to engrave them. The important conclusions of this paper are intended to demonstrate the item's 1, 2, 3, and 4 of my list of sixty points of civilization carried from W. Asia to early China in the XXIIIrd century B.C., which list I have given in my book on The Languages of China, before the Chinese 9 192 (London, Nutt, 1887), and in The Babylonian and Oriental Record of last June. TERRIEN DE LACOUPERIE. THE OLD BABYLONIAN CHARACTERS NOTES. 1) Expedition scientifique en Mesopotamia, vol. II. Paris, 1858, fol- p. 63 sq. 2) Deuxieme Memoire sur VAntiquite de Vhistoire et de la civilisa- tion Chinoises, in Journal Asiatique Avril-Mai, 1868. Cf. pp. 355, 362. 3) Lettre a Mr. Oppert sur quelques particular ites des inscriptions Cunei formes anariennes, pp. 269 276 of Revue Orientate et Americaine* vol IX. 4) The Pre-historic civilization of Babylonia, pp. 21 36 of Journal of the Anthropological Institute 1879, vol. VIII. 5) Hather unsound in statements and wildly fanciful. 6) I was unaware of this fact until my attention was called to pp. 646 and 653 of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for October 1888, where it is referred to by Mr. G. Bertin who, among other in- exact statements, accuses me of having taken the ingenious theory of Dr. Hyde Clarke, " which, supported by only a few philologic considerations, was not, however, scientifically demonstrated " (ibid. p. 645), a theory partly put forward before by Frangois Lenormnnt in 1868. Is it necessary for me to state that this statement of Mr. G. B. about me is baseless, not to say more ? See the text above. 7) A comparison of the Chinese ideograms with the Egyptian hieroglyphs had been made several times, with suggestions of common origin. For instance: G. Pauthier, Sinico-^Egyptiaca, Essai sur VOrigine et la Formation similaire des Ecritures figurative* Chinoise et Egyptienne (Paris, 1842, 8vo,); C. W. Goodwin, Chinese and Egyptian hieroylyphics, in Notes and Queries of China and Japan , Nov., 1869, and March, 1870; Johs. von Gumpach, same title, ibid. May, 1870. 8) Manuel tfhistoire ancienne, 1868, vol. I., p. 401, and 1869, vol. II., p, 9. He does not refer to it in his valuable Introduction a un Memoire sur la propagation deV Alphabet Phenicien, nor in his Histoire ancienne 'de V orient, 1881, vol. I., pp. 417 430, where he compares the process of composition in both writings. 9) " Decouvertes d'une importance de premier ordre." Such were his words. 10) It maybe said however that no discovery can be made now-a-days, which has not been suggested at least once somewhere by somebody, with more or less reason and chance ; such suggestions being generally made on wrong premises, ill-ascertained facts ,ind worthless coincid- ences which have no place in 'the principles of the scientific discovery when this happens to be made. 11) First made known by an article of Prof. K. K. Douglas, The Progress of Chinese linguistic discovery in The Times, 20 April, 1880. And T. de L.: Early history of Chinese Civilization, London 1880, pp. 22 23 and 27 28. Reprinted with some alterations from the Journal of the Society of Arts, July 1880, vol. XXVIII, pp, 723734, and the addition of a plate of early Chinese and Babylonian characters which requires very little alteration to be at the level of the latest de- cipherment. Cf: some complementary views in Tie affinity of the ten stems of the Chinese cycle with the Akkadian numerals '(The Academy, 1st Sept. 1883), and also in The Oldest Book of the Chinese, 1882 AND THEIR CHINESE DERIVATES. 23 sec. 110 and 115 n. 1 ; On the history of the Archaic Chinese writing and texts, (1882). 12) The Rev. Dr. J. Chalmers of China has published an able trans- lation of a late edition of Hli Shen's work : An account of the structure of Chinese characters, under 300 primary forms, after the Shwohwan, 1833 (London 1882), where the chemical process of disintegrating the characters is carried beyond reasonable limits. 13) I may also quote: the Luh shu Ku by Tai Tung of the Xlllth century, and the Introduction to the Study of Chinese characters, by the Eev. Dr. J. Edkins, of Peking (London, 1876) both works, only with great caution. My own Dictionary of the Ku-wen, compiled from many inscriptions and texts, in MS., has proved very useful. 14) Expedition en Mesopotamie, 1858, vol. II. 15') Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1879, vol. VIII., pp. pp. 21-36. 16) Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1879, vol. VI., pp. 454-483. 17) This is one of the objections which have been made to many hieratic- forms in Chossat's Repertoire Assyrien, Menant's Manuel de la langue Assyrienne, &c. 18) Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, October, 1887, vol. XIX ., pp. 625-654, 19) Journal Asiatique,U68, vol. XL, p, 361. 20) /. R. A. S., o. c., p. 630. 21) Archaic forms of Babylonian diameters, p. 150 of Zeit&chrift fiir Keilschriftforschung, 1885, vol. II. 22) Transactions S. B. A., 1. c. 23) See the tablet in H oughton's paper. 24) Amiaud and Mechineau, 169, Pinches 236, Haupt 220, Menant 45, Chossat 269. In the future notes I shall use only the initials instead of the names in full. 25) In the Louvre, figured JSTo. 76 in J. Menant's Recherches sur la Glyptigue Orientals, 1883, vol. I., p. 133. 26) M, 417. H. 71., C, 194, A. M. 209, The Rev. W. Houghton, 0. C., pp. 471, has mistaken the signs, and indulged in a series of specu- lations which are worthless, on this sign and the following. 27) A. M. 203, P. 192, M. 230, C. 362. 28) Cf. Fr. Lenorrnant, Les Syllabaires Cunei formes (Paris, 1879, p. 61. 29) G.Bertin, J.It.A.S,.o.c., p. 643. 30) A.M. 137, P. 131, H. 437, M. 442. 31) A.M. 138, P. 132, H. 135. M. 447, C. 1136. 32) G. Bertin, 1. c., p. 633. 33) An earthenware coffin, according to Dr. J. Oppert ; a comb, according to the Rev. W. Houghton, a quiver according to Mr. G. Bertin. 34) A crockery pot, a jug, according to Dr. Oppert, followed by Mr. G. Bertin ; a comb according to the Rev. W. Houghton. 35) A throne, according to the Rev. W. Houghton followed by Mr. G.Bertin. 36) J. Menant, Manuel, p. 147. 37) J. Oppert, Expedition en Mesopotamie. II. p. 66. 24 THE OLD BABYLONIAN CHARACTERS 38) It is most likely that the determinatives were at the beginning pronounced in speaking and casually dropped, only when the context made the sense clear without it. The habit grew and became regular. 39) When in Assyria the syllabary of 96 characters entered into use, the number of determinative ideograms preserved was only a dozen. 40) The number of Chinese determinatives is generally said to be 214, but this is only the number of distinct characters according to which the native dictionaries are now arranged since Mei-tan, the Lexicologist, in 1615 A.D. 41) Cf. supra, 8. A list of such books is to be found in A. Wylie, Notes on Chinese literature, ipp. 12, 114, sq. ; a few are mentioned by G. Pauthier Journal Asiatique, Avril Mai, 1868, pp. 363-365. 42) On the Ku-wen cf . my remarks in The Oldest Book of the Chinese, sec. 23 and notes. So little was known of these Ku-wen or ' old symbols,' before I began my researches, that an elder Sinologist who has made his name widely known by his long-continued study of ancient Chinese, declared that I was the first among the Sinologists to have shown the importance of these oldest written characters of the Chinese and the necessity of their study.' The Chinese writing was the object of an important reform in 820 B.C., and the Ku-wen ceased to be employed except by tradition in special cases. The last of the transformations or reforms occurred in 375 A.D., from which time date the present characters. 43) These rude and not primitive characters which look, what many of them really are, i. e. signs written by uncultured people and makers' marks were published in the Lettre de Peking sur V origins et la formation de Ve'criture chinoise, by P. Cibot (Bruxelles, 1773), but the plates had appeared previously in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. xlix, pi. 20-46. Their number is 118. Julius Klaproth published 74 of them in his Memoires relatifs a VAsie, vol. II., 1828, pp. 101-131. It is from these works that the specimens of supposed primitive Chinese characters have been quoted ad nauseam in European books. No hieroglyphic inscription has ever been found in China, the country of tradition and worship of antiquity, and none could have been found, as we know now that the writing introduced by the Bak tribes was an old and decayed one which had passed through the (purely hieroglyphic ? and) hieratic periods. The Chinese have never lost sight of the ideographisrri of many of their characters, and have always striven at preserving it, and even increasing it. Nowhere, else than in China, could be seen the phenomenon, unique in the general history of writing, of a renovation of hieroglyphism which occurred in 820 B.C. A powerful ruler, Siuen Wang, of the Tchou dynasty, aided by a skilful minister, had the writing reformed and many characters remodelled in a pictorial direction, in order that the writing should be understood throughout his dominion, notwithstanding the regional dialects. I have compiled a vocabulary of some six hundred of such altered signs, still in MS., and I have already called attention to remarkable fact. (Early history of Chinese civilization, pp. 15-17; The oldest Book of the Chinese, sec. 24). In spite of these causes of preservation of hieroglyphism, and the natural additions to an ideographic body of writing, it is highly significative of the non-indigeneousness of the Chinese writing that 74 symbols only, including 30 spurious forms and maker's marks, should have been found as having a pictorial appearance, AND THEIR CHINESE DERIVATES. 25 or better a skeleton appearance of hieroglyphs, against the five hundred primitive characters of the Chinese writing. 44) Prof. A. H. Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, 1887, app. p. 434, mentions, as mine a theory that the ancestors of the Chinese were once in contact, probably in Elam, with the inventors of the cuneiform writing. But I have never been led to such views by my researches, because I cannot accept Prof. Sayce's unproved theory that the cuneiform writing was invented in Elam, and because the ancestors of the Chinese are much later than this invention. This misconception of my discovery explains how the talented professor of Oxford " found it difficult to believe that the Bak tribes could have carried, not only the forms of the Sumerian ideo- graphs, but also their pronunciation with so little alteration, across nearly the whole length of barbarous Asia." Now this is somewhat exaggerated. The Bak tribes have certainly preserved many sounds and forms of characters, but not all of them, and they had carried away with them written texts and lists of characters, as I have shown reasons to believe, in The oldest book of the Chinese, sec. 114 and 115. As to the length of the -way, Prof. Sayce attaches too much significance to its importance. The journey did not last so long. There are several similar instances, such as the Kalmucks eastwards, the Yueh-tiwestwards, &c. On the latter cf. my article on The Yueh-ti, &c. in The Academy, Dec, 31, 1887. 45) Representations of the graving knife employed are given in the Hwapu wen-tze k'ao, 1833, Bk. IV, f. 22. On this question cf. also L. C. Hopkins, The six scripts (Amoy, 1881), pp. 6, 7. 46) Whence their name of ?flh ton or tadpole characters, given to them in the second century A.D, Cf. Tat ping i/u Ian, Bk, 747, f. 2; and the Babylonian and Oriental Record, vol. I, p. 135. Cf. also, ibid. p. 188. 47) The name of Dungi, an old king of Ur, is interpreted by Mr. T. G Pinches as 'the man of the reed tablet;' in ancient Chinese legends his name is written Dum-kit, i. e. ' the carver of wood,' and it is to him that is attributed the invention of writing like bird's claws, and afterwards like tongues of fire. Cf. my Early History oftheChinese civilization, pp. 27-28. 48) On the Gis-li-khu si and Gis-zu cf. A. H. Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, 1887, p. 9. n. 2; Zeitschrift fur Keilschriftforschung, II, p.208, and pre- viously in Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archeology, vol. I, p. 343 sq Mr. T. G.Pinches has shown, Tr. S. B. A. vol. VI, p, 210, that use was made of papyrus, &c., at all periods. 49) These reservations apply only to the linear characters derived from seals of unknown date. 50) Cf. our reserves on this point 11. 51) Cf. T. de L., The Chinese mythical Kings and the Babylonian eanon in The Academy, Oct. 6, 1883. 52) Cf. G. Pauthier, Journal Asiatique, Avril Mai, 1868, p. 383. The text extremely concise says : y hwo ki, i. e. used fire to record facts. 53) Tso tchuen, Tchao Kung, year XVII, 3. 54) Hii Shen, Shwoh wen, introd. 55) Hii Shen Shwoh wen, introd. 56) Siao Tchuen is* an. Prof. R. K. Douglas, MS. note. 57) A. D. 133 192. Cf. Mayer's Chinese Readers Manual, 755. 58) Said to be a contemporary of Nakhunte or Nai Hwang-ti. Cf. the own introduction of Hii Shen to his vocabulary the Shwoh wen (A.D. 100). 59) In the Luh shu ku by Tai Tung, of the XHIth century, an elaborate work on the historical etymology of the characters, 479 graphic bases only are recognized. Cf. L. C. Hopkins, The six scripts, p. 1. Abel Remusat 26 THE OLD BABYLONIAN CHARACTERS *n his Eecherches sur Vorigine et la formation de VEcriture chinoise, in the Memoires de VAcademie des Inscriptions, 1827, vol. VIII, suggested that the number of the primitive Chinese characters was only about 200, but he had no sufficient sources of information at his disposal. 60) I wish those of my readers who are desirous to examine my com- parisons would closely draw themselves in a cursive and roundish form Babylonian cuneiform characters quoted, as then they cannot fail to grasp the Chinese symbols derived from them. 61) Amiaud and Mechineau 23, Pinches 30, Haupt 39, Chossat 2 3, Menant 212.- Min Tsi kih, Luh shu t'ung, s. v. The slanting stroke in the hieratic Babylonian symbol is longer downwards than in tha text above. The modern Chinese is J| and not J^ as misprinted. 62) A.-M. 176, Pinches 175, Menant 174. It is found in Nos. 55, 84, 196, and 251 of A.M. Min Tsi-kih, Luh shu t'ung, Bk. II, f. 4. 63) Amiaud-Mechineau 175, Pinches 133, Haupt 78, Menant 414, and p. 90. This explanation of du, tur results from my comparison with the Chinese derivate, on the plate of Akkadian and Chinese characters in my Early history of Chinese civilization (London, 1880). 1 repeat it here with fuller confidence, despite Mr. G. Berlin's and Mr. T. G. Pinches' explanation of the symbol as representing the breasts with flowing milk. (Cf. Bertin, I. c. p. 643). Such a figure might suggest mother, food, or the like, but it cannot suggest a child. The early Chinese shape for * son' has been dropped in the text, so that the last sent\VJence must be restituted as follows: The derivate similar in early Chinese >t tih has become ^f tze ' son' and also ^ ' child.' 64) Amiaud and Mechineau 39, Menant 361, Chossat 263. 65) Min Tsi-kih, Luh shu fung, Bk. IV, ff. 45, 46. Fu Iwan-tsiang, Luh shu fen Ivy, s. v. Tung Wei-fu, Tchuen tze-wei, s. v. 66) Without any further change of position. 67) Cf. Chinese fu, Mandshu weikku, Mongolian omo, Kiranti Bakhan, Z?ahopu, Po/jham, Kusundu wan, &c- 68) Cf. Menant 361, Chossat 263, Min Tsi-kih, /. c. 69) A.-M. 186, Pinches 166, Haupt 29, Menant 59, Chossat 472. 70) Amiaud and Mechineau, 240, Pinches 159, Menant 97, Haupt 191. 71) The hieroglyph being still clear to the scribes, there are many variants. Cf. Min tsi kih, o. c., Fu Iwan tsiang, o. c. 72) A.-M. 12, Pinches 24, Menant 2U6, Haupt 24, Chossat, s. v. 73) Figured in J. Menant, Eecherches sur laglyptique orientale, 1, p. 141. 74) As the Nos. 74 1o 83 of the notes are wanting in the text, we add at the beginning of each note the word of the character it refer?. Gis. A. M. 60, P. 104, H. 114, M. 331. Esu, wood; in Chinese shu and muk are the words for tree. 75) ' Mountain,' A, M. 254, P. 198, M. 171, M. T. K. s. v. 76) ' Female,' A. M. 163, P. 234, H. 219, M. 41, C. 157, M. T. K. s. v. 77) Bull,' A. M. 47, M. 433, C. 266, M. T. K. s. v. 78) 'Not,' A. M. 22, P. 12, M, 240, C. 14, H. 36, M. T. K. s, v. 79) ' Answering,' A.M. 229, H.187, M. 143, C.544, M.T.-k. VII, 44. 80) ' Book,' A. M. 294, P, 229, M. 64, M. T. K. s. v. 81) ' Icicle,' A- M. 238, P. 168, M. 94, M. T. K. s. v. 82) 'To make.' A.M. 1 1, P. 45, M. 312. Min Tsi-kih, II, 5. 83) 'Hand.' A.M. 136, P. 139, M. 477, C.235,H. 145, M.T.-k.,VI,37. 84) A.M. 37, H. 41, M. 213, C. 543. The first of the early Chinese derivates has been mislaid the top to the left in the printing, and the AND THEIR CHINESE DERIVATES. 27 Jtasta o f the same derivate ought to be longer upwards and downwards. 85) A.M. 49, P. 81, H. 75, M. 261. Min Tsi-kih, VII, 8. 86) A.M. 221, P. 94, H. 63, M. 356. 87) A.M, 222, P. 68, H. 13. M.G. Bertin, J.R.A.S. 1887, XIX, p. 643, misconceived its original position, perhaps because he had not seen the oldest form here quoted from the Stele des Vautours. 88) In the texts of En-Anna-du and Um kagina. A. M. 258, P. 190 H. 160, M. 160. M. T. K. s. v. 89) A. M. 184, P. 242, H. 7, M. 198. Also T. G. Pinches, MS. note. M. T. K. s. v. 90) A. M. 145, P. 125, H. 186, M. 185, C. 563. 91) A. M. 147, P. 61, H. 100, M. 380, C. 100. The sign's name was arud ubu. 92) Amiaud and Mechineau 51, Pinches 105, Menant 319. The hieratic appears thus on a cylinder of a patesi figured in J. Menant, Glyptique Orientate, I, 64. On the Chinese besides Min Tsi-kih, s, v., and Fu Iwan-tsiang, s. v., cf. J. Chalmers, The structure of the Chinese characters after the Shwoh-wan, 117. 93) A. M., 252, P. 109, H. 159, M. 156, C. 176< M. T. K. s. v. 94) A. M. 276, P. 248, H. 229, M. 61, C, 290, M. T. K. s. v, 95) It appears the left to top on the cylinders of the Ur-ba-u, and of Dungi, which are figured in J. Menant's Glyptique Orientals, I, pp. 129, 140. The attempts at explaining the character as the survival of a lying beast (Rev. W. Houghton I. c. Mr. G. Bertin /. c.) in various ways seems to be unsuccessful. 96) A. M. 243, Pinches 161, Menant 102. Min Tsi kih, Bk, IV, f. 25. 97) A M. 165, P. 238, H. 224, M. 41. K'ang hi tze-tien, s. v.~- Tchuen-tze-wei, s. v. 98) A. M. 8, P.16. Cf. M. 372. 99) The character appears in Inscriptions of Western Asia, III, pi. 43, col. 2, 1. 4. Mr. G. Bertin, J. R- A. S. 1. c. p. 643, has misunderstood this character, which he fancies to represent the legs of a man walking. 100) Amiaud and Mechineau, Tableau, p. 4. 101) A. M. 48, C. 110, M. 383, H. 90, C. 596. 102 An ingenious explanation, from Mr. G. Bertin, 1. c. p. 652. The Chinese character is most certainly derived from the Babylonian form. Cf. A. M. 198, P. 208, M. 185, and Chinese M. T. K. s. v., or Tchuen tze wei, 182. Sounds: Akkadian *'mz, early Chinese bam,mod.fung. 103) M. 14, C- 58. It means also 'son.' H. 230, P. 250. 104) Making already a total of about 50 Babylonian and Chinese symbols identified. In another paper I shall give another fifty Chinese derivates of the old Babylonian cuneiform characters. 105) The oldest Book of the Chinese, 111; /. R. A. S. 1883, vol. XV, pp. 278-279. ERRATA AND CORRIGENDA. Page 1, last line; instead of 36 read 31. 3, 1. 27 ; instead of seeme to be a difficulty read seemed to be a difficulty. 4, 1. 37 ; instead of when read where. 6, 1. 12 ; instead of G. Panthier read G. Pauthier; 1. 37 ; instead of well as other characters read as well as by other characters. 8, 1,19; instead of 'Nmivj read Nineveh; delete which. 9, 1. 30; instead of I am ware read I am aware. 11, 1. 9; delete and. 12, 1. 14; instead of to a corruption read to a greater corruption. 1 3, lastline ; in- stead o/many entries read 522 entries. 18, 1. 9; instead o/only read alone. 19, 1. 10 ; instead of to them read to the Chinese. T. deL. LINGUISTIC AND ORIENTAL WORKS, By Prof. Dr. TERRIEN DE LAOOUPERIE. Du Langage : Essai sur la Nature et 1'Etude des Mots et des Langues. Paris-Leipzig, 1867, 1 vol., 8vo. Les Noms Propres. Le Havre, 1868. Early History of the Chinese Civilization (with plate of early Chinese and Babylonian charac- ters.) London, 1880, 8vo. The Silver Coinage of Tibet (with plate.) London, 1882, 8vo. (Rep. Numismatic Chronicle.) On a Lolo Manuscript written on Satin. London, 1882, 8vo. (Rep. from J.R.A.S.) Paper Money of the Ninth Century, and supposed Leather Coinage of China. London, 1882, 8vo. (Rep. Num. Chron.) On the History of the Archaic Chinese Writing and Texts. London, 1882, 8vo. (Rep. J.R.A.S.) Orientalia Antiqua (edited by T. de Lacouperie.) London, 1882, 8vo. The Oldest Book of the Chinese, and its Authors (Jour. Roy. Asiat. Soc., 1882, vol. xiv., pp. 781-815 ; 1883, vol. xv., pp. 237-289, 484.) Second edition in the press. The Old Numerals, the Counting Rods, & the Swan-pan in China. London, 1882, 8vo. (Rep. N.C.) The Affinity of the Ten Stems of the Chinese Cycle of Ten with the Akkadian Numerals. London, 1883. (Rep. Academy.) The Chinese Mythical King and the Babylonian Canon. London, 1883. (Rep. Acad.) Traditions of Babylonia in Early Chinese Documents. London, 1883. (Rep. Acad.) Chinese and Japanese Coins (Historical Sketch -of), pp. 190-235 of Coins and Medals by the Authors of the British Museum Official Catalogues. London, 1885, Svq. The Cradle of the Shan Race. London, 1885 (Introd. to A. R. Golquhouris Amongst the Shans.) The Sinim of Isaiah, not the Chinese. London, 1887. (Rep. Bab. and Or. Record.) Did Cyrus introduce Writing into India ? London, 1887. (Rep. Bab. and Or. Record.) Babylonia and China. Western Origin of the Early Chinese Civilization. London, 1887. (Rep. B.O.R.) Beginnings of Writing (with six plates.) London, 1888, 1 vol., 8vo. (Soon ready.) The Languages of China before the Chinese : Researches on the Languages spoken by the Pre-Chinese Races of China Proper previously to the Chinese Occupation. London, 1887, 1 vol., 8vo. Les Langues de la Chine avant les Chinois Paris, 1888, 1 vol., 8vo. (Soon ready.) Formosa -Notes on MSS. Languages and Races. London, 1887. (Rep. J.R.A.S.) Ideology of Languages, and its Relation to History. London, 1888, 1 vol., 8vo. (Soon ready.) Historical Catalogue of Chinese Money, from the British Museum and other Collections. Vol. I., 4to. (Soon ready.) The Miryeks or Stone Men of Corea. London, 1887, 8vo. (Rep. J.R.A.S.) The Yueh-ti and the Early Buddhist Missionaries in China. London, 1888. (Rep. Acad.) Tibet (Ethnology, Linguistics, and History), in Encyclopedia Britannica, 1888. From Elarn to China: the Shifted Cardinal Points. (Rep. Bab. Or. Rec., 1888.) The Old Babylonian Characters and their Chinese Derivates. (Rep. Bab. Or. Rec., 1888.) The Pygmies of the Chinese. A contribution to the study of the Negrito races. The Metallic Cauries of Ancient China (B.C. 600.) The Science of Language, chiefly with regard to S.E. Asia. 1 vol., 8vo. (Soon in the press.) The Chinese and their Future Prospects (J. Soc. of Arts, July, 1880.) The Lolo and Mosso Writings (Proc. R.G.S., 1882, supp. pap. I.) On a Bagspa Legend on Coins of Ghazan (Catalogue of Oriental Coins, British Museum, vol. vi., 1881.) Chinese Inscriptions (Academy, 24th Sept., 1881.) The Chinese Name of the Roman Empire (ibid., 1st October, 1881.) The Sumerian and Accadiaii Dialects (ibid., 24th Jan., 1882.) Lolo not connected with Vei Characters (Athenceum, 23rd Sept., 1882.)- The Yh-king (ibid., 21st Jan., 9th and 30th Sept., 1882.) Chinese and Akkadian Affinities (Academy, 20th Jan., 1883.) The Shifting of the Cardinal Points, as an illustration of the Chaldaeo-Babylonian Culture, borrowed by the Early Chinese (abst. ibid., 12th May, 1883.) Early Chinese Literature (ibid., 28th July, 1883.) Chinese and Siamese (ibid., llth August, 1883.) Tin -yut not India (ibid., 2nd May, 1885.) India from China (ibid., 5th Sept., 1885.) Babylonian and Old Chinese Measures (ibid., 10th Oct., 1885.) -Indo-Chinese Philology (ibid., 24th Oct., 1885.) The Nestorian Tablet (Times, 4th Feb., 1885.) -The To Indigenes of Tungking (Proc. R.G.S., April, 1886.) Babylonia and China (Academy, 7th Aug., 1880.) The Nestorian Tablet at Si-ngan fu (Times, 1st Sept., 1886.) Comparative Ideology (Academy, 4th Sept., 1886.)- -Akkadian and Sumerian in Comparative Philology (Bab. and Or. Rec., Nov., 1886.) The Kushites, who were they? (ibid., Dec., 1886.) A New Writing from S.W. China (Academy, 9th Feb., 1887.) A Native Writing in Formosa (ibid., Aug., 1887.) Les Langues de la Chine avant les Chinois (Le Museon, Janvier, Avril, Juin, Aout, November, 1887 ; Janvier, Avril, Juin, 1888.) Tibet non Thibet (ibid., Aout, 1887.) The Land of Sinim, not China (Bab. and Or. Rec., Sept., 1887.) The Letters^ on the Indo- Scythian Coins (2V //, 24th Sept., Stli Oct., 1887.) The Babylonian Origin of the Chinese Characters (J.R.A.X -.\ The Origin of the Babylonian Writing from the Persian Gulf (ibid.) The Primitive Seat of the Aryans. IAYU> NUTT, ^70, SlRAKD, LONDON. BY PROF. DR. TERRIEN DE LACOUPERIE. SEPTEMBER, 1888. LONDON : " BABYLOKIAX & OKIEKTAL IiECoitn," 29, Albert Clapliam Road, S.W. ; D. NUTT, 270, Strand, W.C JVVRTS: EJINEST LEROUX, 28, Rue Bonaparte UN. TV THE FABULOUS FT SEMEN OF EARLY BABYLONIA IN ANCIENT CHINESE LEGENDS. THE fabulous legends of Babylonia attributed the introduction of the art of writing and of all its learning to the successive arrival of divine beings half-fish half-man from the Persian gulf. The tradition must have been carried to early China like so many others already mentioned, as we find it echoed there, and applied in a curious manner to the early leaders of the ; Chinese. In the fragments preserved of the Babylonian history of Berosus 1 we are told that, in the first year 2 , there came a reasonable being whose entire body was that of a fish; under the fish's head he had another head, with feet also below similar to those of a man subjoined to the fish's tail. He had appeared in that part of the Erythaean sea which borders upon Babylonia, and he gave to men an insight into letters, sciences, and arts of very kind. Every day when the sun had set, this being, Cannes, used to retire into the sea, and pass the night in the deep, for he was amphibious, and come again every morning. 3 Similar fishmen, on the same errand, appeared d uring several successive reigns, and, though their names have been preserved in the said fragments or quot .tions from Berosus' work, there are a few discrepancies in the various reports as to the origin and times of their respective appearance. But the difficulty is not insuperable, and a great scholar, the late Francois Lenormant, who had paid peculiar attention to the subject, had come to the conclusion that the number of these monstrous apparitions or theo- phanies, was the same as that of the number of reigns from the first king to the seventh of the ten mythical antediluvian kings. However, even in combining the information derived from the various extracts and quotations of the lost work, we can agree with the late lamented scholar, only in excepting the second reign, as we cannot restore the list of the apparitions and reigns otherwise than as follows. The references are given in foot-notes. 2 THE FABULOUS FISHMEN I. First King: Aloros (for Aduros=Adiuru in Akk.), the Chaldsean who ruled for 10 sar* in the first year of whose reign appears Cannes. 5 II. Second King: Alaparos or Alasparos* who ruled for 3 sar. III. Third King : Amillaros 7 or Amelon of Pantibiblon i Agade), who ruled 13 sar. In the last, appearance of the first Annedotos or Eu- neudetos (=Anudata in Akk. l Anu law' 8 ). Also called Motion. IV. Fourth King: Ammenon, the Chaldasan, of Pantibiblon, who ruled 12 sar. Appearance of the 2nd Annedotos otherwise Eneuga*nos (for Neugamo8=zNukimmut ? in Akk.) 9 V. Fifth King : Amegalaros, or Megalaros, or Metalaros, or Megalanos (for Melargalos ?=Muru-urugal in Akk, 10 ) of Pantibiblon, who ruled for 18 sar. Appearance of the 3rd Annedotos, otherwise Eneubulo* (=Anu-bel)during the second sar. VI. Sixth King: Daonos or Dads of Pantibiblon, who ruled for 10 sar. Appearance of the 4th Annedotos, etherwise Anemen tog (= Ami manatu ? in Akk.) 11 VII. Seventh King : Euedoreskhos or Eddranclws of Pantibiblon, who ruled for 18 sar. Appearance of Anodaphos or Odakon (for Ano- dakon, i.e. Anu-Dagon 12 ). And we are told that all those kings who came,] subsequently to Cannes, explained in detail all that had been taught summarily by him. 13 We have no need here to go further into the question and enquire if the first apparition is the prototype of which the others are only imitations, or if they conceal under a mythological dress some real immigration and importation severally repeated. Neither is it a part of our task to inves- tigate the origin of the mythological arrival of Cannes, nor is it to examine, if it is the result of a combined information by. which a solar myth has enveloped genuine traditions referring to the primeval arrival by sea in the country, of civilised men covered with fish skin coats, from the rising or setting sun regions in the Persian gulf. We shall examine these questions in a special paper. The only thing we have here to remember is that a long lingering tradition of several, probably seven, ap- pearances of mysterious ichthyomorphic beings, or half-fish half-man, whose mission consisted in teaching the population, till then rude, of Ba- bylonia, was linked with the earliest traditions of the country. * These peculiarities must Lave been communicated to the ancestors of the civilisers of the Chinese, when they were still in Western Asia, with the whole or nearly the whole apparatus of civilisation. Knowing how OF EARLY BABYLONIA. 3 conservative of mind the Chinese were, and are still, we should be surprised should we not find such peculiar legends in their early traditions. The following, therefore, must be taken as an imitation, more or less com- plete or completed of the fabulous events of which the tradition was re- ported to them, adapted to their surroundings and circumstances : I. When the mists (in which the heavens were wrapt for three days and three nights) were removed, he (the emperor Hwang-ti=Nakhunte) made an excursion on the Loh (river) and saw a great fish ; and sacrificed to it with five victims, whereupon torrents of rain came down for seven days and seven nights, when the fish floated off the sea and the emperor obtained the map writing, The dragon writing came forth from the Ho (river) and the Kwai (= Kut or tortoise) writing from the Loh (river). II. Apparition to Khng-tu, mother of Yao. "One morning the dragon came with a writing" which was the description of the future emperor Yao. III. When Yao had been on the throne 70 years. . . . On the second month . , when the day began to decline, a glorious light came forth from tho Ho river. Then a Lung Ma (= dragon-horse) appeared, bearing in his mouth a scaly cuirass, with red lines on a green ground, ascended the altar, laid down the scheme, and went away. . . . IV. Two years afterwards, on the banks of the Loh, at the decline of the day . . . "a red light appeared: a tortoise rose from the waters, with a writing in red lines on its back, and rested on the altar." . . . V. In his 14th year Shun raised an altar at the Ho. '-When the day declined, there came a fine and glorious light; and a yellow dragon issued and came to the altar, bearing a scheme on his back, .... in lines of red and green intermingled " VI. In the time of Yao, Shun brought Yii forward. As he was looking at the Ho, a tall man, with a white face and fish's body came out. ..... Having spoken, he gave Yii a chart of the Ho, con- taining all about the regulating of the waters: and returned into the deep." 14 These six apparitions are the only ones which are referred to the primitive times in China, but they do not stand alone in the fabulous legends of the country. As usual with the Chinese compilers of history and ancient traditions, the circle has been extended so as to include the founders of the Shang and Tchou dynasties, whose own merits and virtues equal to those of the early leaders could not, in the judgment of the writers, have been deprived of the same glorious events which il- lustrated the lives of Huangti, Shun and Yao. We giye here these secondary apparitions spurious imitations of the others : T'ang (the founder of the Shang dynasty 15 ) came east to the Loh . , . yellow fishes leaped in pairs a black tortoise, with red lines forming characters At the beginning of the Tchou dynasty 18 Liu Shang went out ramb- ling, when he saw a red man come out from the Loh. who gave him 4 THE FABnLOUT FISHMEN a writing with the words: As a backbone, you must assist Tchang (Wu Wang). When Wu Wang was crossing the river at the ford of Meng in the middle of the stream, a white fish leaped into the king's boat .... under its eyes were red lines which formed the characters .... When Wu Wang died, the young Tching Wang and Tan duke of Tchou as regent, went to view the Hoh and the the Loh, a green dra- gon appeated bearing a shell with red characters, 17 &c. These fabulous statements speak by themselves and do not require any further remark. As we have pointed out in the case of the tree of life and calendar plant some remote and varied echoes of the legend are found in literature 18 . For instance, in the Romantic Geography of the Shan hai king 19 we hear of the Hu people who had human faces and fish bodies, and who were descendants of Shen-nung (whose legend has been shown to be an echo of that of Sargon 20 ) through his grandson, Ling kiali 21 . The notion of mermen was certainly present to the mind of the writers who describing the Ti people from the great rivers in the west of China, and seen by any chance traveller, engaged in their usual occupation of fishing, half the body in the water. They were reported to have the lower part of their body as fishes, and their description appears in the same Romantic Geography 22 . A last echo has probably made itself heard in the following fabulous description of the Jin (195 + 9) or fishmen, which are supposed to have^ been developed out of some notions on the Dugang^ the cetaceous mammal of the Indian Archipelago. It runs thus: "A sort of merman or mermaid, having eyebrows, ears, mouth, nose, hands, nails and head complete; its skin and flesh is as white as alabaster, it has no scales, and is covered with fine hair of various colours ; the hair of its head is flowing like a horse's tail, five or six feet long, which is also the length of its body. People who live near the sea, catch and breed them in pools; the male and female live together like human beings 25 ." * The conclusion of this paper can be but very short. The loan to the Chinese legends of the Babylonian fabulous traditions of the arrival out of the water of fishmen acquainted with the art of writing, is so clear and evident that we need not insist again to make it under- '_ stood. Though not the object of a special mention, the subject matter of this article is the elucidation and demonstration of one of the legends alluded to in the sixty items of the civilization of Babylonia carried to ancient China. OF BABYLONIA AND CHINA. 5 NOTES. 1) He was born circa 355 B.C. 2) Cf. Lenormant, Essai de commentaire des fragments cosmogoniques de Berose, (Paris, 1871) p. 10. Les Origines de Vhistoire, t. I, (Paris, 1880), p. 581. Also T. P. Cory, Ancient fragments of the Phoenician, Chaldcean, Egyptian, Tyrian, Carthaginian, Indian, Persian, and other writers, edit. Hodge, p. 51-52. 3) A representation of Cannes =Ea, corresponding with the descrip- tion of Berosus has been found in the sculptures of the Assyrian palaces and on the Babylonian cylinders. Cf. for the former : Layard, Nineveh and its remains, II, 466; Nineveh and Babylon, pp. 343, 350; and for the latter: Lajard, Culte de Mithra, pi. XVI, 7; pi. XVII, 1, 3, 5, 8. 4) The sar is the well known Babylonian measure of time for 3600 years equivalent to six ner of 600 years; a ner being equivalent to ten soss of 60 years. The aggregate of the years of the reign of the ten antediluvian Kings makes 120 sar, which would make 432000 years, an interpretation which was current in antiquity as we find the same figure in the legends preserved in China. The unit of the primeval traditions may have been a sensible one. We shall examine the ques- tion in a special paper on Babylonian Cycles, Numbers and Names in China. 5) F. Lenormant, Chaldcean Magic, pp. 203-204 ; Essai de com- mentaire des fragments cosmogoniques de Berose, pp. 243 251 ; Les origines de Vhistoire, vol. I, pp, 580 589, App. II, Les Kevelations divines antediluviennes chez les Chaldeens. 6) Lenormant, Berose, pp. 235-236, has explained the two first names 'by the Assyrian Ail-ur, 'the ram of light.' Alap-ur ' Bull of light.' 7) Explained by Lenormant, ibid., p. 236' as the Assyrian Abal-ur son of light.' 8) F. Lenormant, Berose, frag. XI, and p. 249. 9 & 10) F. Lenormant, Chaldwan Magic, p. 204. 11) All these suggestive explanations of proper nnmes are borrowed from Lenormant's works above quoted. 12) A. H. Sayce, Hibbert Lectures of 1887, p. 132. 13) Beros. ap. Syncell, p. 39; Lenormant, Berose, p. 241. 14) All these passages are quoted from the Annals of the Bamboo Books, Tchuh shu ki nien, in Chinese Classics, edit, Legge, vol. Ill, proleg. pp. 109, 112. 113, 114, 116, 117. On this work cf. B. $ 0. M., June, 1888. p. 151; and the note 9, p. 166 must be rectified and completed as follows: These Annals, which are concise as ephemerids, refer to the successive central dynasties until 770 B.C.; from that date to 440 B.C it is the principality of Tsin in Shansi which is their chief object, and afterwards unto the end (394 B.C,) they refer to that of Wei (S. Shansi & N. Honan). 15) In the XVlth cent. B. c. 16) In the Xlth cent. B. c. 17) Tchuh shu Ki nieu, ibid., pp. 118, 128, 143 and 147. 18) The Tree of life and Calendar plant of Babylonia and China, in B. fy 0. R, June 1888, vol. II, pp. 152-153 (repr. pp. 4-5.) 19) Chap, XVI, edit. Pi yuen, fol. 6 v. 20) In my papers Traditions of Babylonia in early Chinese documents (The Academy, Nov. 17, 1883), Wheat carried from Mesopotamia 6 THE FABULOUS FISH MEN OF BABYLONIA. to early China, in B. & 0. R. July, 1888. vol. II, p. 185, (Repr. p. 2) ; and later in the confirmatory and most interesting article of Mr. W. St. Chad Boscawen, Shen-nung and Sargon. ibid. pp. 208-209. 21) Does this name represent any lasting echo of LaranIcha=Surippak, one of the towns where ruled several of the mythical kings under the reign of whom the fishermensuccessors of Cannes made their appearance. 22) Shan Hai King, Bk. 13. 23) Wells Williams, Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language, s. v. p. 287. 24) Halicore Dugung. The word is Malay duyung, also Javanese duyung; Macassar ruyung. Cf. Yule - Burnell, Glossary of Anglo- Indian words, p. 254. 25) K'ang-hi tze tien, s. v. 195 + 2.r Mecldhurst, Chinese and English Dictionary, p. 1389. OF THE tJNlVJE *Ll*'~ THE BABYLONIAN & ORIENTAL RECORD : A Monthly Magazine of the Antiquities of the East. DIRECTOR: PROF. T. DE LACOUPERIE, Ph. & LITT.D. CONSULTING COMMITTEE: THEO. G. PINCHES, WM. C. CAPPER, W. ST. CHAD BOSCAWEN, and PROF. C. DE HARLEZ, LL.D. (CONTINENTAL CORRESPONDENT.) ASSISTANT EDITOR: REV. H. M. MACKENZIE. ..---..^^^.---.---^----i.---^..-.^ ' CONTENTS OF No. 10. Vol. II. 1. THE FABULOUS EISHMEN or EARLY BABYLONIA IN ANCIENT CHINESE LEGENDS. By Prof. Dr. T. DE LACOUPERIE. 2. BABYLONIAN CANALS, By W. ST. CHAD BOSCAWEN. 3. WAS PIANKHI A SYNONYM FOR SABAKO ? By HENRY H. HOWORTH, M.P. 4. NOTES ON INDO-SCYTHIAN COIN-LEGENDS. By DR. E. W. WEST. 5. A BUDDHIST REPERTORY (continued from page 196.) By Prof. Dr. C. DE HARLEZ, Louvain. LONDON. 29 ; ALBERT SQUARE, D. MUTT, r^ IT^TTA T^AT. o ITT FOKEIGN & CLASSICAL BOOKSELLER, CLAPHAM KOAD, S.W. 27Q> STBAND) w . c GLASGOW: D. Bryce & Son. EDINBURGH: Macnivcn & Wallace. PARIS: Ernest Leroux, 28, rue Bonaparte. LOUVAIN: P. & J. Lefever VOL. II., No. 10. learly Subfeciiptioii, lx> SEPT., 1888. 1 7 Apr5 2GK 28 1952 LIBRARY USE JUN 3 1952