It has been conjectured that the object here represented is "a sarcophagus." But the true account seems to be that it is a _double-toothed comb,_ a toilet article peculiar to women, and therefore one which might well be taken to express "a woman," or more generally the feminine gender.

It is worth notice that the emblem is the very one still in use among the Lurs, in the mountains overhanging Babylonia.

And it is further remarkable that the phonetic power of the character here spoken of is _it_ (or _yat_)the ordinary Semitic feminine ending.
The original writing, it would therefore seem, was a picture-writing as rude as that of the Mexicans.

Objects were themselves represented, but coarsely and grotesquely--and, which is especially remarkable, without any curved lines.

This would seem to indicate that the system grew up where a hard material, probably stone, was alone used.