The Phoenicians apparently were the first nation in the EasternHemisphere to use a phonetic alphabet, the characters being regardedas mere signs for sounds. It is a curious fact that at an equallyearly date we find a phonetic alphabet in Central America amongst theMayas of Yucatan, whose traditions ascribe the origin of theircivilization to a land across the sea to the east. Le Plongeon, thegreat authority on this subject, writes: "One-third of this tongue(the Maya) is pure Greek. Who brought the dialect of Homer to America?or who took to Greece that of the Mayas? Greek is the off-spring ofthe Sanscrit. Is Maya? or are they coeval?" Still more surprising isit to find thirteen letters out of the Maya alphabet bearing mostdistinct relation to the Egyptian hieroglyphic signs for the sameletters. It is probable that the earliest form of alphabet washieroglyphic, "the writing of the Gods," as the Egyptians called it,and that it developed later in Atlantis into the phonetic. It would benatural to assume that the Egyptians were an early colony fromAtlantis (as they actually were) and that they carried away with themthe primitive type of writing which has thus left its traces on bothhemispheres, while the Phoenicians, who were a sea-going people,obtained and assimilated the later form of alphabet during theirtrading voyages with the people of the west.