It was Champollion who laid the foundation of the decipherment of the hieroglyphics; Anglian, Ditperron, and Burned aro the fathers of Zend studies ; Arabic and Syriac scholars in Germany are the direct or indirect pupils of Sylvestre do Sacy and Quatremere; in Chinese, Stanislas Julien stands alone ; Assyrian was cultivated in France and in England, and subsequently taken up by German scholars. About 1868 the Academie des Inscip tions et Belles-Lettres decided to have its 'Corpus Inscriptionum Serniticarum ' to collect in one work the Semitic inscriptions scattered through out various books and periodicals, and more especially the Phoenician and Punic inscriptions. The first part of this Corpus contains fifty Phoe nician inscriptions, with Latin translation and commentary by MM. Renan and J. Dcreubourg. Of larger and complete inscriptions, one was found by M. do Vogue at Gebel (Byblos), in which it is reported that the King Yeliomelek erected an altar in the temple in the 4th century s.c. Another is the Sidonic inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ashmonezar, which is one of the best preserved ; it is also of the 4th century B.C. Most of the inscriptions (ten to fifty) are those found at Cyprus, the greater part of which arc now in the British Museum. We find mentioned in them the following kings,—Pum yaton and Melekyaton, kings of Kitti (Cyprus), and Adil (Idalion), and Ptolemy, probably Soter (312 B.c.), to whom the monuments are consecrated, the god Resheph, probably identical with the biblical bent Resheph (Job v. 7), known on Egyptian monuments as the god Raspu. ./Escula pins is called in sonic of those inscriptions Baal Merappe, Baal Sanator,' analogous with the Hebrew Raphael.
The inscriptions in Western Media on the Behistun or Baghistan tablets, record the political autobiography of Darius Hystaspes in the old Persian language, in the Babylonian, and also in the language of the Scythians in the Medo Persian empire ; and the translation of the Scythian portion of those inscriptions is distinctly of the Scythian, that is, Turanian group, as spoken in the 5th century B.C., though the people by whom it was spoken are believed by Professor Oppert and Mr. Norris to have been Medians. This Scythian part of the Behistun inscriptions bears a special relationship to the Ugro-Finnish family, which Dr. Caldwell considers to resemble the Dravidian dialects. He thinks that the ancient Scythie race, by which the greater part of Central Asia was peopled prior to the irruption of the Medo - Persians, belonged to the Ugrian stock, and not to the Turkish or the Mongolian.
1. Rork Inscriptions have been found; amongst other places, at Shabbazgarbi, Girnar, Dhauli, Jangada (two separate edicts on Dhauli and Jangada rocks), Sahasaram, Rupnath, Baimt, Khandagiri, Deotek slab.
2. Care Inscriptions have been found at Barabar, Nagarjuni, Khandagiri, Ramgarh.
3. Pillar Inscriptions havo been found :— Debli pillar from Siwalik (Firoz Shah's Lat), five inscriptions, one called Queen's edict, and one the Kosambi edict.
Dehli pillar from Meerut.
Allababad pillar.
Lauriya•Araraj pillar (Radhia).
Lauriyn, Nnvandgarh pillar (Mathis).
Sanchi pillar.
The inscription at Junagarh, dipcovered by Colonel Tod in 1822, I= three paragraphs more than that at Dhauli in Katak (Cuttack), discovered by Lieutenant Kittoe. Others have been dis covered at Kapurdigiri and at Ganjam.
The fourteen edicts into which the Junagarh inscription is divided cover considerably over 100 square feet of rock. They are inscribed on the uneven surface of a huge rounded and somewhat conical granite boulder.
The records on the rocks and pillars and caves north-west of India, and in India itself, are in two characters, styled the Aryan or Bactrian, and the Lat or Budh. The term ' Lat' has been given because found on certain pillars (Lat, SANSK., a pillar) in Dehli, Allahabad, etc. The Lat or Budh or early Pali character is the same as the Aryan, but the forms of the letters differ from the Aryan, and the letters are larger. Inscrip tions in these characters are engraved on rocks at Kapurdigiri in Afghanistan, at Cuttack, at Dehli on a pillar ; also on pillars at Allahabad, Betiah, Muttiah, and Radhia.
A pillar near Dchli has been called the pillar of Firoz, after Firoz Shah, who reigned in Dehli A.D. 1351 to 1388. It has a more ancient in scription, and one with a more recent charac ter below in Sanskrit, to the effect that Raja Vigrah or Visala Deva had, in A.D. 1169, caused this pillar to be inscribed afresh to declare that the said raja who reigned over the Sikambari had subdued all the regions between the Himavat and Vindhya. This pillar was erected to enjoin the doctrines of Buddha, but the reading of it somewhat differs from that of the others. Though resembling the Girnar inscription in general pur port, these inscriptions differ considerably in the structure of certain sentences. Both Mr. James Prinsep and Professor Wilson attempted transla tions of it.
The same Lat or Budh characters found on the pillars at Dehli, Allahabad, and elsewhere, are also found engraved on rocks. The ancient Budh alphabet is really the simpler and more elegant form of the refined Sanskrit.
The Allahabad inscription is similar to that at Dehli, but has four short lines additional. A stone lodged in the museum of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, found at Bairath near Bhabra, between Dchli and Jeypore, has an inscription in the Budh character.
The same character is also found in two inscrip tions at Junir, of which one is on the Naneh Ghat. It is in keeping with the inscription on the Dehli pillar and on the rock at Girnar.