ANIMAL SIGNS IN NAME-GROUPS 711

these, too, represent the names of individuals, personally referred to in
various relations. A very considerable proportion of the sign-groups pre-
served in these documents may thus be treated as personal names.

The signs themselves, varying in a single group—as noted above in
connexion with the ' man' sign*—from two to five, rarely six, usually three
or four in number—evidently refer rather to syllables than single letters. It
is further evident that in a good many cases a single character could be used'
by itself on a tablet with a phonetic value representing the object that the
sio-n in its original form was supposed to depict.

It has been demonstrated above that a series of name-groups belonging
to Class B correspond in whole or part with examples taken from Class A,
and the conclusion has been drawn that the language itself was practically
identical and that the differences visible in B must be rather due to dynastic
than to racial causes.'2

From the point of view of language it is especially interesting to note Ideo-
that a certain number of signs included in the' name-groups' of the- B series KJJJnal"1
are still sufficiently pictorial in character to declare their meaning. names.

Specimens of tablets including such signs in name-groups are given in
Fig. 694. Amongst them are several types of domestic animals, such as
the ox, the goat, and the pig,

A variety of animal forms had already supplied a frequent ingredient
in sign-groups of the hieroglyphic class, some referring to personal names,
others probably to official titles, these, as in the later script, being represented
either by the whole animal or by the head and fore-part only. There are
also reproduced in Fig. 694, e,f two tablets on which the fore-parts of sailing
vessels occupy the central position of groups,3 while in Fig. 694, d the
triskelis sign appears, which may be taken to symbolize some more abstract
idea—tP\- It seems possible that several of these quasi-pictorial signs
connected with animals or other objects in such name-groups had at least
a bi-syllabic phonetic value.

Of the animal forms, the conventionalized horse's head V"1 frequently Domestic

,., ^ ~, . , , 1 , r T7> animals

recurs in name-groups, like onto- in Greek. Ihe pigs head 01 rig. thus in-
694, a, b, is also often found in such groups. Among the combinations of ^ced:
signs in which it occurs are f*^, ^f=]= (Fig. 694 6)," and ^f f G" The

See above, p. 706. examples of the sign.

= See above, p. 684, Fig. 065. ' Distinguished from the initial group by

See especially, Scripta Minqa, i, p. 263 smaller characters,

seqq. and Table XIV, pp. 232, 233, A. 58-S4. ' No. 972 of my hand-list.
See below, p. Soo, for comparative