'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in reference to Major Rennell's remarks: with narrative of a journey to Persepolis: now first printed, with hitherto unpublished cuneiform inscriptions copied at Persepolis: by the late Claudius James Rich, Esq., formerly the Resident of the Hon.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.' [‎184] (272/474)

184
BABYLONIAN ANTIQUES. [AFP.
the Assyrian writing of Herodotus, and that which
Darius Hystaspes engraved on the pillars which he
set up on the banks of the Bosphorus. The inscrip
tions deciphered by Dr. Grotefend are of the times
of Cyrus, Darius Hystaspes, and Xerxes. Notwith
standing the obscurity in which its history is in
volved, it is not difficult to fix the period in which it
fell into disuse. From its peculiar form it is evident
that it must have been confined, like the sacred cha
racter of the Egyptians, to inscriptions on stone and
other hard substances ; and there must consequently
have been another mode of writing better calculated
for ordinary use, which probably resembled the
Zend character of Anquetil-Duperron. The sacred
or lapidary character must have fallen into disuse
upon Alexander's conquest, when neither the Per
sians nor Babylonians had any monuments to erect
or events to record. The native princes who
wrested the throne of Persia from his feeble suc
cessors adopted the Greek language and character
in their coins and inscriptions; and all recollection
of the cuneiform writing must have perished during
the long period in which they held the sceptre of
Iran. The Sassanians, the professed restorers of
the ancient rites and usages of Persia, could not
therefore have had it in their power to recall the use
of this obsolete mode of writing ; and accordingly
we find the monuments and coins of that dynasty
inscribed with a character having an analogy with
the Hebrew, Phenician, or Palmyrene, which has