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Records of the Past, 2nd series, Vol. II

By A. H. Sayce

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Preface

THE present volume of Records of the Past possesses a melancholy interest. It contains the last literary monument of one of the most valued of my fellow-workers, M. Arthur Amiaud, who died suddenly just after completing the final pages of his translations of the inscriptions of Tel-loh. No other Assyrian scholar had so thoroughly mastered the secrets of the non-Semitic language of ancient Chaldæa, and the knowledge which has perished with him is for science an irreparable loss. The hand that traced the interpretation of the mysterious records of primeval Shinar was not permitted to revise it in proof.

It will be seen that I have been able to redeem my promise of editing the latest and most authoritative translations of the early Egyptian texts, and I am fortunate in having secured the help of Professor Maspero, the most eminent of living Egyptologists, for the work. I hope next year to be able to redeem my other promise of bringing out two volumes during the same year.

I must take this opportunity of correcting a misreading which I have allowed to appear in two passages of the last volume of the Records. The name of the Hittite prince mentioned by the Vannic king Menuas is not Sada-hadas, as it is given on pages 97 and 165, but Sada-halis, as it is correctly transcribed in the transliteration and translation of the inscription itself (pp. 165, 166).

In the translations doubtful words and expressions are followed by a note of interrogation, the preceding word being put into italics where necessary. The names of individuals are distinguished from those of deities or localities by being printed in Roman type, whereas the names of deities and localities are in capitals.

A. H. SAYCE.

Queen's College, Oxford,
          July 1889.