With these statements of profane writers agree certain notices which we find in Scripture.

Darius the Mode, shortly after the destruction of the Median empire, "signs" a decree, which his chief nobles have presented to him in writing.

He also himself "writes" another decree addressed to his subjects generally.

In later times we find that there existed at the Persian court a "book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia," in which was probably a work begun under the Median and continued under the Persian sovereigns.
If then writing was practised by the Medes, it becomes interesting to consider whence they obtained their knowledge of it, and what was the system which they employed.

Did they bring an alphabet with them from the far East, or did they derive their first knowledge of letters from the nations with whom they came into contact after their great migration?
In the latter case, did they adopt, with or without modifications, a foreign system, or did they merely borrow the idea of written symbols from their new neighbors, and set to work to invent for themselves an alphabet suited to the genius of their own tongue?
These are some of the questions which present themselves to the mind as deserving of attention, when this subject is brought before it.
Unfortunately we possess but very scanty data for determining, and can do little more than conjecture, the proper answers to be given to them.
The early composition of certain portions of the Zendavesta, which has been asserted in this work, may seem at first sight to imply the use of a written character in Bactria and the adjacent countries at a very remote era.