I.—A New Decipherment of the Hittite Hieroglyphs

Abstract

I have ventured to lay before scholars a new system of decipherment of the Hittite hieroglyphic inscriptions, based on a study of those already published, and those which were found during the season of 1911, when I was employed by the Trustees of the British Museum on the excavations at Carchemish. The Trustees have most kindly given me permission to quote from these new texts of 1911 as far as is necessary to prove my system of decipherment and grammar, even to the names of the petty chiefs which occur in them, and they have asked only that I shall refrain from discussing the historical side of their inscriptions, so that their own priority of publication at a later date be not anticipated. I wish therefore to thank them for a concession which I fully appreciate.