[364] vi: 1.
[365] See his Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, pp. 342–345 (London, 1853); cf. also Hormuzd Rassam’s Asshur and the Land of the Nimrod, p. 31 (New York, 1897), which gives an account of the discovery of more tablets, among which were the famed Deluge tablets.
[366] Relaçam em que se tratam as guerras e grandes victorias que alcançou o grãde rey da Persia Xa Abbas do grão Turco Mahometto and seu Filho Amethe, pello Padre F. Antonio de Gouvea (Lisboa, 1611).
[367] Purchas His Pilgrimes, Part II, pp. 1533, 1534 (London, 1625).
[368] As to the signification of the strange, wedge-shaped character described by the noted Italian traveler, Pietro della Valle admits that he knows nothing. In the fifteenth chapter of his Viaggi he frankly declares: “E queste iscritzioni in que lingua e lettera siano non si sa perchè è caratere oggi ignoto.”
[369] Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique, p. 145 et seq. (London, 1638).
[370] Chardin became an English citizen and achieved such fame as a traveler that a tablet was dedicated to his memory in Westminster Abbey bearing the legend “Sir John Chardin—nomen sibi fecit eundo.”
[371] Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th Century, pp. 23, 24 (by H. V. Hilprecht, Philadelphia, 1903).
How Grotefend achieved such marvelous success when others, apparently more competent than he, had failed has been explained by the fact that “he early displayed a remarkable aptitude for the solution of riddles: a peculiar talent which he shared in common with Dr. Hincks, who also acquired great distinction as a cuneiform scholar.” The Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions, p. 169 (by A. J. Booth, London, 1902).
Dr. R. W. Rogers, in his instructive work, A History of Babylonia and Assyria, Vol. I, p. 61 (New York, 1915), referring to the same subjects, writes: