Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/369

340 Assyrian style were collected by Mr. Rich in 1820, during his visit to Xineyeli, and these were sul)sequently acquired by the liritish Museum.^ In 1827, Schulz found about forty inscriptions at Van, written in a very similar character, and these were published in the 'Journal Asiatique ' of 1840.'^ A prism with a long inscription was discovered at Xineveh in 1830. but it does not seem to haye become accessible till purchased by Colonel Taylor in 1840.^ In 1840, Mr. Layard copied an in- scription at Malamir that presented another striking variety. But the first period of great discoveries in Assj'ria had now approached. In 1843, M. Botta, the French Consul at Mosul, beuan his excavations in the mound at Khorsabad, and he soon uncovered the remains of a palace, lie found the doors adorned with monu- mental bulls, and the walls decorated with bas-reliefs and inscriptions, lie described the result in a series of letters to iM. Mold, which appeared in the ' Journal Asiatique' between May 1843 and June 184-5. M. riandin was hastily commissioned to take sketches; but fortunately the task of copying the inscriptions was left entirely to IJotta. He faithfully trans('ri])ed upwards of two hundred, many of them beinu', however, exact or slightly varied reproductions of each other. A large collection of smilptures found its way to the Louvre, and the drawings and inscriptions made their appearance in IS4!) in the great work ' Aloiniment de Xhiive.' Like many similar })roductions in France, it was executed upon such a splendid scale as to place it practically beyond the reach of ordinary students. The inscriptions were, however, afterwards published separately; and M. liotta

' In KimnliMaUy ii. K50, he gives a facsimile of writing from Nimrud. See also Babylon and Peraepoiisj PI. IX. No. 5. Rawlinson, J. li. A. S. X. '27.

' Journal A,iiati(/ife, i.\. 2o7. ^ Menant, Ecntures^ p. 170.