deified "Sumerian" Father-king with the Goat emblem of the Goths, otherwise styled In-dara or In-duru, is spelt by three alphabetic signs as Za-ga-ga,[1] a name which it would appear was intended to be read Zagg. For we find that this same deified Father-king's name is spelt by the later Sumerians by one syllable as Zakh or Zax, with a dialectic variant of Sakh or Sax, a name which, under its Zagg or Zax form, I have shown to be the Sumerian source of the Greek Father-god name of Zeus for Jupiter, the Sig title of Thor or Andvara in the Eddas, and the Sakko title of Indra, the Indian Jupiter, in the Pali.[2] This, therefore, appears to represent the germ of the alphabetic system of writing, but that it was not appreciated is evident by this and analogous polysyllabic words being fused into one syllabic sign with more than one consonant. And no progress towards alphabetic spelling is noticeable in the Sumerian period in Mesopotamia.
In Egypt, from the First Dynasty of Menes and his Sumero-Phœnicians, when hieroglyphs were first used there for continuous writing, a step towards the alphabetic system was made in the frequent employment of consonantal syllabic word-signs in spelling out words piecemeal by the initial consonantal sounds of these word-signs, the remaining consonantal sounds if any being dropped. This was not a true alphabetic system, as it employed a great number of totally different signs for the selfsame consonant, and it was, besides, intermixed with syllabic writing. And owing to the innate conservatism of the Egyptians in preserving intact their picturesque ancestral hieroglyph writing, this mixed system continued unaltered down to the Roman period. Though side by side with this, alphabetic letters in more or less their modern form were in use for owner's marks on pottery,
