Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c&c: during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820 . bed them to me. The amount of his description isnearly as follows : The first was a green granite, so dark as to be almost black,finely polished, and in height 22 inches, in width 12. One of itssides was completely covered with hieroglyphical figures, roughlycarved in relief, and occupying five rows. The first row containedforms, supposed to denote the sun, moon, and one of the stars ;the second row, animals resembling a hare, a dog, and a bird ;the third, a figure with the head and lowe
Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c&c: during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820 . bed them to me. The amount of his description isnearly as follows : The first was a green granite, so dark as to be almost black,finely polished, and in height 22 inches, in width 12. One of itssides was completely covered with hieroglyphical figures, roughlycarved in relief, and occupying five rows. The first row containedforms, supposed to denote the sun, moon, and one of the stars ;the second row, animals resembling a hare, a dog, and a bird ;the third, a figure with the head and lower extremities of atiiier, the arms of a man, and the tail of a goat. Three svm-bolical instruments divide this monster from a second, who isalso half brute, half man, with a staff in its hand, and crownedwith a flat cap; the fourth row contains an animal like an ante-lope, a serpent, a scorpion, and something resembling the orna-mented top of a staff or sceptre; the fifth exhibits a trident, twospears, a hawk, and another bird, finishing the group with aregularly formed Greek cross. RELICS AT SUSA. 415. Besides this face of hieroglyphics, two sides of the stone areoccupied by inscriptions in the cuneiform character. At thehead of one of them was a double row of natural objects, whichmy friend omitted to draw j but he told me he thought theywere birds. On comparing the present object with the cylinders of Baby-lon, we find the same hieroglyphical figures occur in botli; thesun, the crescent, the star; also the dog, and those singularlyformed shapes which I have denominated symbolical instru-ments ; deeming them signs invented by the framers of thismysterious language, to designate the attributes, or peculiar lawsof the gods, or ruling powers, prefigured in the more apparentsymbols. The cross, indeed, (in wonderful coincidence,) is gene-rally understood to be symbolical of the divinity, or eternal life;and the Egyptian priests urged its being found engraved on thewalls of their t
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