M. Botta's Letters on the Discoveries at NinevehLongman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1850 - 74 pages |
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able to copy Academy of Inscriptions ancient appears archæological armed arrow ascertained Assyrian attired Baghdad ball band of inscription bas-relief representing beard bearing beneath bitumen BOTTA bricks brickwork bull calcined characters chariot clad colossal figures colour complete Constantinople cuneiform inscription decayed defaced describe discernible discovered DISCOVERIES AT NINEVEH disinterred displays doubtless earth east eastward entire excavations extremity flag-stone fortress fragments fringed GROTEFEND gypsum slabs head horses interior labours large chamber Layard's Nineveh legs likewise lower border Major RAWLINSON merely mètres MOHL monument mound Ninus observed opposite ornament painted red paved perceive Persepolis Persian Phrygian cap Plan Plate platform portal portion present preserved probably remains remark robe roof Royal Asiatic Society sculptures seen Semiramis sent similar specimen stone sword thick three feet three personages tiara tion traces Turning westward UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Wall XIV wall xx warriors western partition whereon winged figure workmen XXII
Popular passages
Page xi - ... made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone; they inscribed their discoveries on them both, that, in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit these discoveries to mankind, and also inform them that there was another pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this day.
Page 12 - Anklets — one-fourth of the real size. uncommon than they formerly were. They are of course very heavy, and, knocking together as the wearer walks, make a ringing noise ; hence it is said in a song, " The ringing of thine anklets has deprived me of my reason.
Page xi - Adam's prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars ;* the one of brick, the other of stone ; they inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those discoveries to mankind ; and also inform them that there was another pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in the...
Page vi - GKOTEFEND, who professes to be rather the decipherer than the translator of the cuneiform inscriptions, and who engages merely to open the way to those whose attention has been much devoted to the study of the ancient languages of Persia, has however succeeded in translating some of the inscriptions on the ruins of Persepolis, and one from those of Pasargadcc.
Page i - Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
Page i - So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days
Page vi - Each inscription is repeated in all the three species. " The cuneiform is the most ancient character of which we have any knowledge. It is difficult to say in what country it was invented ; but its use was common to the great nations of antiquity ; the Median, Persian, and Assyrian. The inscriptions deciphered by Dr. GROTEFEND are of the times of Cyrus, Darius Hystaspes and others on this subject, have been published in the admirable pages of the " Literary Gazette" and
Page vi - Grotefend observes, that there are three varieties of those inscriptions, distinguished from each other by the greater complication of the characters formed by the radical signs of a wedge (or arrow) and an angle.
Page x - The most common mode of keeping records in Assyria and Babylonia was on prepared bricks, tiles, or cylinders of clay, baked after the inscription was impressed.
Page viii - Notwithstanding the extreme difficult} of rendering the inscriptions of Nimroud and Khorsabad available for the illustration of history, owing to the practice which the Assyrians followed of distinguishing their proper names by the sense, rather than by the sound ; so that the form of a name could bo varied ad libitum, by the employment of synonyms, expressed either symbolically or phonetically. Yet some important results have already followed to the historian from the researches of Major Rawlinson....