'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in reference to Major Rennell's remarks: with narrative of a journey to Persepolis: now first printed, with hitherto unpublished cuneiform inscriptions copied at Persepolis: by the late Claudius James Rich, Esq., formerly the Resident of the Hon.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.' [‎188] (276/474)

188 BABYLONIAN ANTIQUES. [ app.
parent motive, render very difficult. I shall, how
ever, never lose sight of it.
No. 5 is a small piece of clay of this size, which
contains an inscription only on one side. The writ
ing is of the second species, and the letters slope a
little, which is frequently the case in inscriptions of
this kind.
I have lately received a small piece of brick of a
very fine quality, with a varnished surface, from
Mousul. It was found among the ruins of Nineveh,
and contains an inscription in cuneiform letters so
minute and difficult to read that I have not yet been
able to determine to what class it is to be assigned.
The third class of Babylonian writing is that
found on the bricks and cylinders. The Babylonian
bricks have been described in other places, and
some specimens of them are already before the
public. The antiquary is aware that the custom
of stamping letters on bricks was not peculiar to
Babylon, and that examples of it occur in the ruins
of Greece. Among the scanty remains of Seleucia
on the Tigris I found numbers of bricks with im
pressions on them ; but from the coarseness of the
materials and inferiority of workmanship I have
never been able to discover any writing. The
stamps with which the bricks of Babylon are im
pressed are, on the contrary, cut very neatly and ap
plied with care ; and even some precaution appears
to have been taken to preserve the writing, for they
are all placed with their faces or written part down-