Archibald Henry Sayce (1845-1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and in the early 1870s the translation of part of the epic tale of Gilgamesh attracted considerable publicity. Based at Oxford, the young philologist Sayce published several books on Assyrian in quick succession. In the preface to this 1875 teaching grammar/reader, he notes that in just three years since the publication of his grammar for specialists (also reissued in this series), Assyrian had become a 'popular' subject, with students 'flocking in from all sides'. His book was written in response to the demand for beginners' books that were similar to those available for Greek or Hebrew. The texts that follow the syllabary and outline grammar are accompanied by transliterations and translations, with substantial accompanying notes on vocabulary, grammar points, and Hebrew cognates.

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845-1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and popular enthusiasm for these discoveries was running high when Sayce began his academic career at Oxford in 1869. In this 1907 work, based on lectures delivered in Edinburgh in the previous year, he considers the state of archaeological knowledge of Babylonia and Assyria, which he describes as 'miserably deficient', and in particular the paradox of a huge number of cuneiform tablets in various languages drawn from many sites at which the original excavation had not provided an adequate context. Beginning with the history of the decipherment of cuneiform, Sayce goes on to describe what the tablets reveal of political and trade interactions among the different nations of the Near East and Asia Minor, and the relevance of these discoveries to Old Testament studies.

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845-1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and popular enthusiasm for these discoveries was running high when Sayce began his academic career at Oxford in 1869. In this 1895 work, he considers the history of the Holy Land in the context of the flood of new documentary and archaeological material which had come to light in the course of the nineteenth century. Sayce's approach opposed the 'higher criticism' which sought to demonstrate that the stories of the Old Testament should not be interpreted literally; in his opinion, 'in the narrative of the Pentateuch we have history and not fiction', and he believed that archaeological discoveries supported his view. Although this approach was already outdated, his reconstruction of the history of the ancient Near East remains of interest to historians of archaeology.

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845-1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and popular enthusiasm for these discoveries was running high when Sayce began his academic career at Oxford in 1869. This 1874 work, based on a series of lectures, discusses the relatively new science of comparative philology, its disciplines and its relationship to physiology, history, and religion. The work describes the ways in which the laws of language, and especially of language change and development, can be hypothesised and tested. Sayce also considers, and takes issue with, the notion of 'the metaphysics of language', and examines the significance of comparative philology to the study of comparative religion and mythology. The final chapter deals with the specific issue of analogy in language development, in particular in relation to changes in pronunciation and word-stress.

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845-1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and popular enthusiasm for these discoveries was running high when Sayce began his academic career at Oxford in 1869. This work in 'The Semitic Series', intended to present 'a knowledge of the more important facts' in the history of the Near Eastern civilisations, was published in 1900. Sayce's account begins with the geographical and historical background, and then surveys life in the cities, from the family and its home to the government, the law and the army, economic issues such as slavery, prices and banking, the extent and relevance of literacy, and the importance of religion. Scholarly, but written for a popular audience, this work remains of relevance to anyone interested in studying the everyday lives of ordinary people in this ancient society.

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845-1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and popular enthusiasm for these discoveries was running high when Sayce began his academic career at Oxford in 1869. This 1894 work, published by the Religious Tract Society, is an introduction for a popular readership to the world of ancient Assyria. Beginning with the geography of Mesopotamia and with the early archaeological discoveries in the region, Sayce next describes the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions and tablets, and the knowledge gained from them, especially about the history of the region, and government and organisation, before describing religion, literature, and what can be deduced about everyday life. An appendix gives weights and measures, lists of kings and gods, and a chronological table linking events known from the archaeological record to accounts in the Old Testament.

This highly illustrated 1900 work on Egypt old and new by John Ward (1832-1912) seeks to guide the visitor to the ancient sites while also remarking on the radical changes to the economy and the development of the modern state since the intervention of the British government in 1883 and the appointment of Lord Cromer as consul-general and effective ruler. This blending of ancient and modern can be seen in discussions of Port Said ('not an Egyptian town at all') alongside the abandoned and silted-up delta ports of the Egyptians, Ptolemies and Ottomans. Thebes is discussed both as a city of the living and a city of the dead, and Ward notes approvingly the flattening of the ancient town of Assouan (Aswan), to form the foundations for new public buildings, on the orders of Lord Kitchener. Ward's subsequent book, Our Sudan (1905), is also reissued in this series.

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. 1877 Excerpt: ...always the conditional aorist. However it is very frequently employed in the first case, when it is followed by an accusative of the object to which the action of the verb moves forward; but the third sense, that of the cohortative, to which this form of the imperfect is restricted in Hebrew, is never found in Assyrian in the indicative mood. Examples of its use occur in almost every inscription; thus we have yutsalla'a beluti-ya "he submitted to my lordship," icnusa ana neri-ya "he submitted to my yoke," sa epusa "which I made" (not "had made"), aslula "I carried off," where though no accusative follows, the idea of motion contained in the verb required this form in-a. This accusatival form in-a is not confined to the aorist but is also found in the imperative and precative (of which more further on). Here of course it has the cohortative sense which it bears in Hebrew in the case of the indicative. As has been said, the form of the tense most frequently met with in the inscriptions is the-apocopated or construct aorist; or, as it may be called from its frequency in historical narration, the aorist simply. Perhaps one reason for its obtaining the preponderance over other forms lies in its brevity, and consequent aptitude to denote vigour or reality, like the jussive in Arabic and Hebrew. At all events it tended more and more to banish the longer and more original forms and to become the type of the verb. I'need not say much of the paragogic or energetic aorist which retained the mimmation and adapted it to the expression of. energy and decision. Of course the mimmation might follow either one of the case-vowels, as abnum "I built," uselam "I caused to ascend," usarrikhim "I consecra...