DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3332#0077
CONCLUSION.
73
It remains for us to consider whether we have
sufficient grounds for attributing to the earliest
years of the colony certain very curious inscrip-
tions that were found by Mr. Petrie last year
in the temenos of the Milesian Apollo. I
assigned them last year (Nauk. I. chap vii.;
cf. also Jour. Hell. Stud. 1886, p. 220, sqq.)
to that period, and accordingly regarded them
as the earliest representative sj)ecimens of
the Ionic alphabet. Both Professor Kirchhoff,
in the new edition of his studies, and Professor
Hirschfeld2 have contended that these inscrip-
tions are no earlier than the rest that were
found on the same site, and are all of them as
late as the time of Amasis; they explain the
various abnormal forms that occur as due
only to the caprice, ignorance, or unskilfulness
of the writers. The position taken by so
high authorities necessitates a careful reconsi-
deration of all the evidence that points to an
earlier date. That evidence I will now recapitu-
late.
Let us first consider the first three classes of my
table in Naukratis I. PI. XXXV. A; that is to say,
the inscriptions on PL XXXII. numbered 3, 4,
lb, 68-79 (omitting for the present 305). These
include all the inscriptions incised upon three
very early types of pottery : all were found
low in the rubbish trench, except 3 and 4,
which were at the bottom of an early well.
Thus the testimony alike of excavation and of
fabric points to their very high antiquity.
That of epigraphy is as follows. On these vases
we find incised inscriptions of an extremely
primitive appearance. In the forms of some of
the letters there is not much scope for variation;
but the forms are primitive, except that of i,
which is straight; but a straight line is a possible
early abbreviation of the Phoenician yod. As to
other letters in which deviation is possible,
Normal Forms.
2
1
(I)3 .
(I)3
Doubtful. Abnormal Forms
2
10
the following statistics
selves :—
will speak for them-
2 Eh. Mus. loc. cit.
If I add that the abnormal forms are, with the
exception of one cr, identical in all cases, that
the inscriptions are classed together from then-
style of pottery, not from the forms of their
letters, and that the manners in which they are
incised are quite different, and betray different
hands, it will, I think, become clear that to
attribute all the abnormal forms to individual
caprice or ignorance is to assume a series of
coincidences that would be truly incredible.
We must, on such a hypothesis, believe that
certain independent dedicators made certain
identical mistakes, and no others; that those
dedicators happened all to select certain very
early types of pottery, used by no one else,
for their inscriptions; and that then these
inscriptions all happened to get buried among
the earliest fragments. But there is yet
another point. None of these abnormal forms
are by any means natural deviations from the
ordinary Greek letters; they all can very easily
be derived from the Phoenician characters, the
recognized prototype of the Greek alphabet, or
from other more or less direct influences that
affected its earliest origin and forms. Thus
our ignorant dedicators must have chanced
upon yet another coincidence, and reproduced
the very forms that their fathers must have
used when gradually striving to write Greek in
Phoenician characters.- But surely enough has
been said of these coincidences. The only
possible inference from the facts just adduced
is that the inscriptions before us are the
earliest found at Naukratis, and that they date
from the seventh century, when the alphabet
« These two forms are in the same inscription, which bears
a late appearance.
K
73
It remains for us to consider whether we have
sufficient grounds for attributing to the earliest
years of the colony certain very curious inscrip-
tions that were found by Mr. Petrie last year
in the temenos of the Milesian Apollo. I
assigned them last year (Nauk. I. chap vii.;
cf. also Jour. Hell. Stud. 1886, p. 220, sqq.)
to that period, and accordingly regarded them
as the earliest representative sj)ecimens of
the Ionic alphabet. Both Professor Kirchhoff,
in the new edition of his studies, and Professor
Hirschfeld2 have contended that these inscrip-
tions are no earlier than the rest that were
found on the same site, and are all of them as
late as the time of Amasis; they explain the
various abnormal forms that occur as due
only to the caprice, ignorance, or unskilfulness
of the writers. The position taken by so
high authorities necessitates a careful reconsi-
deration of all the evidence that points to an
earlier date. That evidence I will now recapitu-
late.
Let us first consider the first three classes of my
table in Naukratis I. PI. XXXV. A; that is to say,
the inscriptions on PL XXXII. numbered 3, 4,
lb, 68-79 (omitting for the present 305). These
include all the inscriptions incised upon three
very early types of pottery : all were found
low in the rubbish trench, except 3 and 4,
which were at the bottom of an early well.
Thus the testimony alike of excavation and of
fabric points to their very high antiquity.
That of epigraphy is as follows. On these vases
we find incised inscriptions of an extremely
primitive appearance. In the forms of some of
the letters there is not much scope for variation;
but the forms are primitive, except that of i,
which is straight; but a straight line is a possible
early abbreviation of the Phoenician yod. As to
other letters in which deviation is possible,
Normal Forms.
2
1
(I)3 .
(I)3
Doubtful. Abnormal Forms
2
10
the following statistics
selves :—
will speak for them-
2 Eh. Mus. loc. cit.
If I add that the abnormal forms are, with the
exception of one cr, identical in all cases, that
the inscriptions are classed together from then-
style of pottery, not from the forms of their
letters, and that the manners in which they are
incised are quite different, and betray different
hands, it will, I think, become clear that to
attribute all the abnormal forms to individual
caprice or ignorance is to assume a series of
coincidences that would be truly incredible.
We must, on such a hypothesis, believe that
certain independent dedicators made certain
identical mistakes, and no others; that those
dedicators happened all to select certain very
early types of pottery, used by no one else,
for their inscriptions; and that then these
inscriptions all happened to get buried among
the earliest fragments. But there is yet
another point. None of these abnormal forms
are by any means natural deviations from the
ordinary Greek letters; they all can very easily
be derived from the Phoenician characters, the
recognized prototype of the Greek alphabet, or
from other more or less direct influences that
affected its earliest origin and forms. Thus
our ignorant dedicators must have chanced
upon yet another coincidence, and reproduced
the very forms that their fathers must have
used when gradually striving to write Greek in
Phoenician characters.- But surely enough has
been said of these coincidences. The only
possible inference from the facts just adduced
is that the inscriptions before us are the
earliest found at Naukratis, and that they date
from the seventh century, when the alphabet
« These two forms are in the same inscription, which bears
a late appearance.
K