Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/103

 of the stone severely taxed the strength of his tools, and it was with considerable difficulty that he secured a piece from a window covered with cuneiform characters, and some other smaller objects. These he despatched through the agent of the Dutch East India Company to the Burgomaster of Amsterdam. So far as we know, the only other specimens of cuneiforms that had hitherto been seen in Europe were those picked up by Delia Valle on the site of Babylon and sent to the Kircherian Museum.

He was not very happy in some of his criticisms, he described the animals on the Entrance Portico as having a likeness to the Sphinx with the body of a horse and the feet of a lion. He imagined that the animal attacked by the lion on the sculptured stairs was a horse or even an ass. The object that separates the various groups in the same place he describes as a vase. He considered the capital surmounting the columns was the figure of a kneeling camel. He is about the only competent observer, with the exception of Niebuhr, who discerned female figures among the sculptures. He appears to say that there are no less than forty-six of these in the Palace of Darius alone: among them are the King's attendants bearing the fly-chaser and parasol. He estimates the total of human figures among the ruins at 1300; and, judging by the number of bases, he considered there were originally not less than two hundred and five columns. He gives the measurements of the buildings, the size and number of the figures with a detail that becomes irksome and bewildering. The reader often regrets that he did not make better use of his pen and pencil, and spare him some of the