'Narrative of a journey to the site of Babylon in 1811, now first published: memoir on the ruins; with engravings from the original sketches by the author: remarks on the topography of ancient Babylon, by Major Rennell; in reference to the memoir: second memoir on the ruins; in reference to Major Rennell's remarks: with narrative of a journey to Persepolis: now first printed, with hitherto unpublished cuneiform inscriptions copied at Persepolis: by the late Claudius James Rich, Esq., formerly the Resident of the Hon. East India Company at Bagdad. Edited by his widow.' [‎164] (252/474)

164
SECOND MEMOIR ON THE
tion of the water, I saw earthen urns filled with
ashes, with some small fragments of bones in them;
and in the northern face of the Mujelibe I discovered
a gallery filled with skeletons inclosed in wooden
coffins. Of the high antiquity of the sepulchral urns
no one will for an instant doubt; and that of the
skeletons is sufficiently ascertained, both from the
mode of burial, which has never been practised in
this country since the introduction of Islam, and still
more by a curious brass ornament which I found in
one of the coffins. These discoveries are of the
most interesting nature; and though it is certainly
difficult to reconcile them with any theory of these
ruins, yet in themselves they sufficiently establish
their antiquity. The two separate modes of burial,
too, are highly worthy of attention. There is, I be
lieve, no reason to suppose that the Babylonians
burned their dead; the old Persians we know never
did. It is not impossible that the difference may in
dicate the several usages of the Babylonians and
Greeks, and that the urns may contain the ashes of
the soldiers of Alexander and of his successors.
I have now done with the eastern ruins.—Major
Rennell considers me as the first who established the
fact of there being no ruins on the western banks of
the river; but Beauchamp states the same fact in
the clearest and most positive manner. His words
are, " Je me suis soigneusement informe des Arabes
dont la profession est d'enlever les bricques de ces
mines pour construire les edifices de Hella, si en