To return from these remote speculations to a subject of more immediate interest, the discovery of these Minæan inscriptions shows the existence of an alphabet older than that of the earliest known inscriptions in Phoenician letters. The alphabets of Greece, Rome, and all modern nations are beyond all doubt derived from that of Phoenicia, and it has been generally supposed that this was formed from an abridgment of the hieroglyphics or hieratics of Egypt. But the Minæan inscriptions raise the question whether the Phoenician alphabet itself and the kindred alphabets of Palestine, Syria, and other countries near the Arabian frontier were not derived from Arabia rather than from Egypt. The Minæan language and letters are certainly older forms of Semitic speech and writing, and it seems more likely that they should have been adopted, with dialectic variations, by other Semitic races, with whom Arabia had a long coterminous position and constant intercourse by caravans, than that these races should have remained totally ignorant of letters, until Phoenicia borrowed them from Egypt. Moreover, as Professor Sayce shows, this theory gives a better explanation of the names of the Phoenician letters, which in many cases have no resemblance to the symbols which denote them. Thus the first letter Aleph, "an ox," really resembles the head of that animal in the Minæan inscriptions, while no likeness can be traced to any Egyptian hieroglyph used for 'a.' Should these speculations be confirmed, they will considerably modify our conceptions as to the early history of the Old Testament. It would seem that Canaan, before the Israelite invasion, was already a settled and civilized country, with a distinct alphabet and literature of its own, older than those of Phoenicia; and it may be hoped that further researches in Arabia and Palestine may disclose records, buried under the ruins of ancient cities, which may vie in antiquity with those of Egypt and Chaldæa. But in the meantime we must be content to rely on the records and monuments of these two countries, and especially those of Egypt, as giving us the longest standard of genuine historical time, extending backwards about 7000 years from the present century. TROY AND MYCENÆ.