It is perhaps not unfitting that the recent centenary festivities should be supplemented by a brief survey of the various objects of interest which the Society has accumulated during the hundred years of its existence. Apart from the intrinsic value of many of the items, the collection includes portraits of most of the scholars who were prominent during that period in Oriental research—amongst them many of the Society's office-bearers. It also testifies to the liberality of our members in the past; and it seems a mere act of justice that, after commemorating those who have benefited the Society in other ways, we should spare a little attention for those who have presented the artistic treasures that decorate its premises.

Proto-Hittite is the name given by Dr. Forrer to the prefixal language, examples of which are found in the cuneiform texts of Boghaz Keui. In them it is called Khattilis “Hittite”, the mixed official language of Boghaz Keui being known as “the language of the scribes” (EME sa ameli dubbi, Annals of Archœology, iii, 3, pl. xxvi, 1, 12). This latter was, in fact, a mixture of Sumerian, Assyrian, and Indo-European elements on the basis of an Asianic language which was spoken in Arzawa (Western Cilicia) and Kizzuwadna (of which the southern Qumani or Komana was the capital). The royal line of Boghaz Keui, as their names show, originally spoke Proto-Hittite, and must have given the name of Khattu and Khattusis (“Silver-town”) to the city which they made their capital after the conquest of the surrounding territory. They came from Kussar, written Kursaura in earlier documents, the Garsaura of classical geography, and their capital had been Arinna (“Well-town”), the Phreata of Ptolemy. Here their annals reached back to the time when Sargon of Akkad had invaded their country (2800 b.c.).

The recognition of the kinship of many of the languages of Asia and Europe was the starting-point of the science of Indo-European philology; and hardly was the first linguistic family-tree set up before there was inaugurated the search for the original home of the Indo-Europeans, a search which has been going on for nigh to a century, and whose chief accomplishment to date has been a voluminous literature. Needless to say, the site of the first home has not yet been fixed. In the course of time the quest had gradually shifted from Asia, where Bactria served as a convenient centre for the original community, over to Europe, where Germany and Scandinavia were the chief claimants for this honour, when the discovery of Tocharish, a centum-language, once more revived the hypothesis of the Asiatic origin of the Indo-Europeans. Far be it from an Assyriologist to take sides in this matter: but may he be permitted to remind the Indo-European scholars that the chancesof finding older historical information about the Indo-Europeans than that furnished by the inscriptions from the Egypto-Babylonian cultural area are very slight indeed? It is the purpose of this paper to point out the earliest known contacts of the Indo-Europeanswith that cultural area and then to speculate a little as to when and whence these tribes may have come into Asia Minor and on into the Semitic world.

The transcription of the Cuneiform signs presents a problem much more difficult than that of the transcription of the ordinary Semitic alphabetical scripts. The object of transcriptions of Cuneiform signs is not merely that of obtaining phonetic perfection, but it must also distinguish the signsemployed for the same sounds. In the earlier stages of Assyriology Delitzsch and others adopted the system of accentuating the signs, and before a larger number of homophones were discovered this system sufficed, and has beenadopted for the transcription of both Sumerian and Semitic texts. But at present there is complete anarchy among Assyriologists in transcribing Cuneiform texts. A tablet of the Rassam Collection in the British Museum, which the writer recently copied through the kindness of Sir Ernest Wallis Budge, groups together the homophonic signs. On this tablet there are, for example, eight different signs for the phonetic syllable eš. nine for še, eleven for gir, and eighteen for ge! It is not possible to devise eleven and eighteen different accents for thesevalues. The writer, therefore, proposes to introduce the method of numbering the signs with inferior exponents, eš1 eš2 eš3; ge1, ge2, ge3, etc., following a suggestion made by Dr. A. Walther, ZA. xxix, 147. [The idea was taken from Weissbach.]

As explained in the note on p. 74, the reading of this name is uncertain, especially with regard to the second element, due, the other transcriptions being ul-e (the ordinary values of the two characters of which it is composed) and rue. I have chosen the transcription in the title because it seems to be the most probable and because, some sort of transcription was a necessity. Other possible transcriptions, due to what seem to be variants, will be found on the page which I have quoted.

The few remarks which it is my privilege and honour to address to you to-day will be concerned with some of the results of investigations which I have made during the course of my research work in connexion with The History of the Music of the Hebrews and the Synagogue, and the Jewish source of the early music of the Roman Church.