'broken pans and bricks, some of which have writing on them.'[1] He was able to make a small collection of antiquities, including a curious basaltic stone covered with cuneiform characters, and these specimens eventually found their way to the British Museum.[2] The Memoir he published on the subject made its first appearance in the 'Fundgruben des Orients,' but was, republished in England by Sir James Mackintosh. A second Memoir, written in 1817 and printed soon afterwards, was enriched by three plates containing several cuneiform inscriptions that now appeared for the first time.[3] Rich considered there were three different kinds of writing to be found at Babylon, which he divided 'according to the order of their complication.'[4] The first, he observed, corresponds to the third Persepolitan; and in Plate 8 he gives three specimens of it, all found upon stones resembUng the 'Caillou Michaux' described by Millin. The second occurs rarely, and Mr. Rich says he was the first to publish an example, although Grotefend had already seen a copy of a similar kind. It is on a piece of baked clay in shape like a barrel, about 4¾ in. long and 1½ in. in diameter (Plate 9, No. 4). The third species is that generally found on bricks and cylinders, of which he gives four examples.[5] While he wrote, he learned that the three different kinds of Babylonian writing had been submitted to Grotefend, and that 'learned and ingenious person' had come to the conclusion that they 'are only varieties of different modes of writing the same character, and that there is
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THE PERSIAN COLUMN
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