The Phoenician alphabet, like the Hebrew, consisted of twenty-two characters, which had, it is probable, the same names with the Hebrew letters,[0131] and were nearly identical in form with the letters used anciently by the entire Hebrew race. The most ancient inscription in the character which has come down to us is probably that of Mesha,[0132] the Moabite king, which belongs to the ninth century before our era. The next in antiquity, which is of any considerable length, is that discovered recently in the aqueduct which brings the water into the pool of Siloam,[0133] which dates probably from the time of Hezekiah, ab. B.C. 727-699. Some short epigraphs on Assyrian gems, tablets, and cylinders belong apparently to about the same period. The series of Phoenician and Cilician coins begins soon after this, and continues to the time of the Roman supremacy in Western Asia. The soil of Phoenicia Proper, and of the various countries where the Phoenicians established settlements or factories, as Cyprus, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Southern Gaul, Spain, and North Africa, has also yielded a large crop of somewhat brief legends, the “inscription of Marseilles”[0134] being the most important of them. Finally there have been found within the last few years, in Phoenicia itself, near Byblus and Sidon, the three most valuable inscriptions of the entire series--those of Jehavmelek, Esmunazar and Tabnit--which have enabled scholars to place the whole subject on a scientific basis. It is now clear that the same, or nearly the same, alphabet was in use from a very early date over the greater part of Western Asia--in Phoenicia, Moab, Judæa, Samaria, Lycia, Caria, Phrygia, &c.--that it was adopted, with slight alterations only, by the Etruscans and the Greeks, and that from them it was passed on to the nations of modern Europe, and acquired a quasi-universality. The invention of this alphabet was, by the general consent of antiquity, ascribed to the Phoenicians;[0135] and though, if their claim to priority of discovery be disputed, it is impossible to prove it, their practical genius and their position among the nations of the earth are strong subsidiary arguments in support of the traditions.