Trinity Coll. Dublin.
In reference to these celebrated inscriptions, a remarkable statement
occurs in the _Journal Asiatique_ for 1836, tom. ii. p. 182., of which I
annex a translation:--
"M. Fræhn has discovered in an Arabian author,
Ibn-abi-Yakoub-el-Nedim, who wrote in 987, a passage stating that
at that period the Russians already possessed the art of writing.
This author has even preserved a specimen of Russian writing of
the tenth century, which, he says, he received from an ambassador
sent to Russia by one of the Princes of the Caucasus. These
characters do not resemble the Greek alphabet, or the runes of the
Scandinavian races. It would appear, therefore, that the first
germ of civilisation in Russia preceded the establishment of Rurik
and the Varangi in this country, instead of having been introduced
by them. A circumstance of peculiar interest is, that these
ancient Russian letters, so different from any other alphabet,
have the greatest analogy with those inscriptions, yet
unexplained, sculptured on the rocks of the desert between Suez
and Mount Sinai, and noticed there in the sixth century of our
æra. The analogy existing between these inscriptions placed on the
confines of Africa and Asia, and others found in Siberia, had
already been demonstrated by Tychsen. M. Fræhn is about to publish
this interesting discovery."
Query, what ground is there for the above assertions, and what has been
since published in support of such a statement?
μ.