Observations on the Remains of Ancient Egyption Grandeur and Superstition, as Connected with Those of Assyria; Forming the Appendix to Observations on (Abridged, Paperback, Abridged edition)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1818 Excerpt: ... firmed by Diodorus Siculus, who says that Semiramis brought an Obelisk from the mountains of Armenia, and erected it in the most conspicuous part of Babylon; it was 130 feet high, and is reckoned by the same author as one of the wonders of the world." Diodorus, also, on the authority of Ctesias, further informs us that the same ambitious princess, marching into Media, ordered mount Bagisthan, a rugged rock of vast height and dimensions, to be made smooth, and afterwards caused herself, attended by one hundred of her guards, to be cut deep on its surface: she is said, also, to have ordered to be engraved upon it an inscription in Syriac characters. In her progress through the higher Asia, she is described as performing similar prodigies; levelling mountains and raising vallies, planting gardens upon rocks, and building cities in deserts, till she had accomplished the undertaking she had in view, of making an unobstructed path through those mountains, which, in the age of Diodorus, was still called Semiramis's Way. With the truth or falsehood of these latter statements, I am little concerned; but, on the respectable authority of Moses Chorenensis, an historian greatly esteemed by Sir W. Jones, who pays a very high compliment to his veracity, and from his history of Armenia, I am able to prove that the records of her mighty acts in that country remained still unimpaired, when that history was composed about a century before Christ. As the history of this book is rather curious, and the author less known than he ought to be, the reader may be pleased with the annexed account of it, abridged from the learned author himself, in the eighth chapter of his first book.. About the year before Christ 130, a learned person, named Maribas, of Catiha, in Syria, was sent b...