CHAPTER II. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
It was soon after the middle of the eighteenth century that interest began to 
be taken in the seal cylinders brought by travelers from the East. The Greek 
and Roman gems had long been collected and had been the object of careful 
study,* but very few Babylonian or Assyrian intaglios had fallen in the way of 
collectors, and they had excited little more than a mild curiosity. Whatever was 
not Greek, Roman, or evidently Egyptian was classed under the general designa- 
tion of Etruscan.t 
The first publication of any of the Oriental seal cylinders known to me was by 
Comte Caylus in his “Recueil d’Antiquités Egyptiennes, Etrusques, Grecques et 
Romaines.”’ Of this handsome collection, mainly of classical antiquities, with 
some Egyptian and Oriental interspersed, there were issued seven volumes, some 
of which passed into a second edition within a few years. The first five volumes 
contain figures of seven cylinders, { and other Assyrian cone seals and Sassanian 
seals. 
The objects figured by Count Caylus were, or had been, in his own collection 
(1, Introduction, p. 1) and many of them passed into the Cabinet du Roi (p. xii). 
Count Caylus seems to speak (1, p. 56) of a cylinder figured by Montfaucon “ parmi 
plusieurs morceaux Egyptiens,” but I have not found it. 
One cylinder had also been published by Bianchini, in his “Storia Universale,” 
Dag 7A Som uassicnlap.102) 
In 1791 there was published in London ‘Tassie and Raspe’s “A Descriptive 
Catalogue of a General Collection of Ancient and Modern Engraved Gems, etc.,”’ 
of which Tassie offered casts for sale in paste, enamel, and sulphur. This work 
was in two quarto volumes, printed in double columns, one English and one French; 
and at the end of the second volume were a large number of plates, of which plates 
IX, IXa, and X gave nine cylinders from the British Museum and Mr. Townley’s 
collection. ‘They were described as Persepolitan, although only one of the nine is 
of Persian origin; but the cuneiform characters on some of them were then known 
only from the monuments of Persepolis. The text was written by M. Raspe, and 
he was inclined to connect the form of writing with the Chinese (vol. 1, p. 64), 
herein anticipating M. Delacouperie. The Egyptian hieroglyphics, however, he 
regarded as of a different order, having no Chinese afhnities. 
At the beginning of the nineteenth century these objects began to attract the 
attention of scholars as well as of collectors. But at first it was the writing rather 
than the art that invited curious study. In 1801 Dr. Joseph Hager published at 

* Mariette, Traité des Pierres Gravées, Paris, 1750. 2 vols. folio. 
+ Ménant, “Les Pierres Gravées,” 1, p. 11, refers on this point to Pietri Sancti Bartoli, “Sepulchri Antichi” ; Gori, 
“Museum Etrusc.,” p. 431, Florence, 1737; Mariette, “ Traité des Pierres Gravées,” p. 7. 
{ T. 1, pl. xvim, 1, 2 (nouvelle édition, 1761); t. 1, pl. 1x, 2 (1756); t. mm, pl. xu, 1, 2 (1759); t. rv, pl. xxu, 2 (1761); 
t. v, pl. x11, 4. Of these the first two are said to have been found in Egypt; but Count Caylus regarded all these cylinders 
as specimens rather of Persian art, except that from t. 1v, which contains an Egyptian cartouche and inscription. 
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