the phonetic method of writing Semitic words was preserved; and,
furthermore, down to the latest days of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires
the mixed method of writing continued, though there were periods when
"purism" was the fashion, and there was a more marked tendency to spell out
the words laboriously in preference to using signs with a phonetic
complement as an aid in suggesting the reading desired in any given
instance. Yet, even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary continued to be
a mixture of ideographic and phonetic writing. Besides the conventional use
of certain signs as the indications of names of gods, countries, cities,
vessels, birds, trees, &c., which, known as "determinants," are the
Sumerian signs of the terms in question and were added as a guide for the
reader, proper names more particularly continued to be written to a large
extent in purely "ideographic" fashion. The conservatism which is a feature
of proper names everywhere, in consequence of which the archaic traits of a
language are frequently preserved in them, just as they are preserved in
terms used in the ritual and in poetic diction, is sufficient to account
for the interesting fact that the Semitic settlers of the Euphrates valley
in handing down their names from one generation to another retained the
custom of writing them in "Sumerian" fashion, or, as we might also put it,
in "ideographic" form. Thus the name of the deity, which enters as an
element in a large proportion of the proper names,[33] was almost
invariably written with the sign or signs representing this deity, and it
is only exceptionally that the name is spelled phonetically. Thus the name
of the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon, Marduk, is written by two
signs to be pronounced AMAR-UD, which describe the god as the "young
bullock of the day"--an allusion to the solar character of the god in
question. The moon-god Sin is written by a sign which has the force of
"thirty," and is a distinct reference to the monthly course of the planet;
or the name is written by two signs to be pronounced EN-ZU, which describe
the god as the "lord of wisdom." The god Nebo appears as PA--the sign of
the stylus, which is associated with this deity as the originator and
patron of writing and of knowledge in general,--or it is written with a
sign AK, which describes the god as a "creator."

Until, therefore, through parallel passages or through explanatory lists
prepared by the Babylonian