Inscriptions

Writings preserved through the permanence of the stone or metal on which they are graved have a special significance to the historian and the student of language or art. After China the oldest inscriptions are found in India and Egypt, and then follow those of As syria and Babylonia, Persia and Media, Phœnicia, Greece and Rome. Inscriptions like those of the trilingual Rosetta-stone have in a number of instances led to the decipherment of languages long forgotten.