ORIENTAL SCIENCE IN AMERICA. G77 



The present report is the first attempt made in this country to pre- 

 sent in brief the work of oriental scholars during- one j^ear. It is nec- 

 essarily imperfect partly because of its novelty and for lack of assist- 

 ance on the part of scholars throughout the country. Many of the 

 papers mentioned in the bibliography could not be described because 

 they w ere not accessible. 



ASSYRIOLOGY. 



Cyrus Adler showed that two classes of Assyrian verbs weak in the 

 third stem consonant, and usually confounded, were capable of sharp 

 differentiation; criticised the neglect of Assyrian in the article on 

 Semitic languages in the Cyclopiodia Britannica, and suggested that 

 a certain class of Syriac verbs (the saphel) might not be organic forms; 

 described the views of the Babylonians concerning life after death ; 

 some of the oriental objects in the National Museum, among them an 

 Ethiopic version of the Gospels in the Grant collection ; the German 

 expedition to southern Babylonia; the Tell- Aniarna tablets in the Brit- 

 ish Museum; and announced to the American Oriental Society, on behalf 

 of the Semitic Seminary of the Johns Hopkins University, the purpose 

 to publish a complete edition of the life and writings of Edward Hiucks, 

 subjoining a tentative bibliography of Hincks's works. 



Edgar P. Allen offered some new translations of the inscription of 

 Tiglath-pileser I. In columns i 31-2, i 25, and A^ii 34 he reads ser 

 sangdti; and in ii G6 gammarca irhnti, "swift veterans;" he also made 

 a conjecture which, if established, would present the unique instance of 

 an Assyrian king mentioning an unsuccessful campaign. 



Francis Brown explained why the religious poetry of the Semitic 

 cuneiform monuments is Babylonian rather than Assyrian; translated 

 a number of Babylonian penitential psalms, and drew comparisons 

 with the corresponding portions of the Old Testament. He pointed 

 out the identification of the names of the kings mentioned in Genesis, 

 chapter xiv, discussed the question of the capture of Samaria, disputing 

 Delitzsch's opinion that it was captured by Shalmaneser, and attempted 

 to harmonize the statements of the Bible (Is,, xxxvii, 38), Alexander 

 Polyhistor, and the Babylonian chronicle with reference to the murderer 

 of Sennacherib. He gave notes on the Tell-Amarna tablets, discovered 

 in 1887 in middle Egjpt. One of the most surprising facts brought to 

 light by these new tablets is the extent to which the cuneiform charac- 

 ter and the Babylono-Assyrian language were employed in Western 

 Asia. 



Robert F. Harper published text and translation of the cylinder of 

 Esarhaddon, and described his visit as a member of the University of 

 Pennsylvania exploring party to Zinjirli, where a German expedition 

 under Dr. Human has been excavating with most valuable results. 



Paul Haupt described modern researches in Assyria and Babylonia ; 

 the development of the Assyrian writing; published the text of the 



