87-91, 176-179, 429-432, 518-520, DONORS, PRINCIPAL 100, 196, 206, 436, 532, 676, 788, 900, 1044, 1252, 1460, 1652 1464-1465 1046, 1255 NEWS OF THE MONTH 97-98, 107-108, 203-204, 345-346, 439-440, 538-539, 681- 682, 792, 902-904, 1047-1048, 1255-1256, 1466 NUMISMATICS, LIST OF WORKS RELATING TO OFFICIAL GAZETTES AND NEWSPAPERS, CHECKLIST OF 683-722, 793–826, 905-938, SCOTLAND, LIST OF WORKS RELATING TO 11-58, 109-148, 359-403, 441-517, 573- 663, 723-780, 827-890, 939-1031, 1111-1242, 1295-1452, 1481-1636 SHAKESPEARE EXHIBITION - - STATISTICS (CIRCULATION). SEE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY STA- THACKERAY'S "HENRY ESMOND," NOTEBOOK FOR COLLEGE 13 1914 CAMBRIDGE, MASS BULLETIN AN EXHIBITION OF ORIENTAL AND EUROPEAN MANUSCRIPTS 3- 10 11- 58 LIST OF WORKS IN THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY RELATING TO RECENT ACCESSIONS OF CITY DOCUMENTS CIRCULATION STATISTICS FOR MONTH OF DECEMBER NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 1914 59-86 87-91 92-96 99 100 2.40 JOHN PURROY MITCHEL, mayor of the City of New York, ex officio. WILLIAM A. PRENDERGAST, Comptroller of the City of New York, ex officio. OFFICERS President, JOHN L. CADWALAder, LL.D. First Vice-President, GEORGE L. RIVES, LL.D. Second Vice-President, LEWIS CASS LEDYARD, Esq. Secretary, CHARLES HOWLAND RUSSELL, Esq., 476 Fifth avenue. Assistant Treasurer, UNITED STATES TRUST COMPANY, 45 Wall street. BULLETIN OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS Published monthly by The New York Public Library at 476 Fifth avenue, New York City. President, John L. Cadwalader, 476 Fifth avenue; Secretary, Charles Howland Russell, 476 Fifth avenue; Treasurer, Edward W. Sheldon, 45 Wall street; Director, Edwin H. Anderson, 476 Fifth avenue. Subscription One Dollar a year, current single numbers Ten Cents. Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter, January 30, 1897, under Act of July 16, 1894. Printed at The New York Public Library, 476 Fifth avenue. VOLUME XVIII JANUARY, 1914 NUMBER 1 AN EXHIBITION OF ORIENTAL AND EUROPEAN WITH MANUSCRIPTS ITH the removal of the exhibit on city planning, a part of the collection of manuscripts and rare books has been installed in the main exhibition room at the central building. In selecting the material, special prominence has been given to manuscripts which antedate the era of printed books, and to a description of these the following article has been restricted. In the method of arrangement, an effort has been made to show the history of writing and book-making by the Babylonians, Egyptians, Hebrews, and other oriental nations, and in western Europe, from the earliest times down to the sixteenth century A. D. The earliest writing shown, that of the Babylonians, dates from the twenty-fifth to the sixth century B. C. The oldest example exhibited is a cone of baked clay bearing an inscription commemorative of Gudea, patesi or priest-king of Lagash in southern Babylonia, about 2450 B. C. The text is written in the old Babylonian wedge-shaped characters and in the language known as Sumerian or pre-Semitic. A very clear example of this writing is shown in the inscription on a limestone slab commemorative of the building of a temple by Gimil-Sin, king of Ur, following a victory over the Semitic Amorites, about 2200 B. C. Following the above in arrangement are sixteen small tablets of baked clay incised with lines of cuneiform characters, most of them in the Sumerian language. Seven come from Nippur, where excavations have brought to light large quantities of such tablets. The inscriptions chronicle the commercial relations of various temples, a record of whose business transactions was commonly kept in this way. Two are of special interest for their state of preservation; they are enclosed in clay envelopes, a corner of one of which is broken off so as to show a portion of the inscription on the enclosure, and the envelope of the other is broken and loose so as to show the contents when removed. The inscriptions on these envelopes usually indicate in a shortened form the nature of the text enclosed. To a somewhat later period belong portions of two slabs from Nineveh incised with parts of the "standard inscription" of Ashurnasirpal, king of Assyria, in cuneiform characters in the Assyrian language. An excellent specimen of Neo-Babylonian script is shown on a truncated cone cylinder of baked clay dating from the time of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, B. C. 604-561. It was the custom of the Babylonians, on the erection of a new building, to place a number of these cones in the foundations and walls in apertures left open to receive them and afterwards sealed up. The practice still survives in a modified form in the ceremonies of the present day at the laying of corner-stones in public buildings. Two examples of early Egyptian writing are on view: the first, a fragment of black basalt, said to be part of a pedestal from a statue of the Egyptian god Horus, with an inscription in hieroglyphic characters; and the second, a small fragment of an Egyptian papyrus roll, with text in hieratic characters. In the second case are specimens of Hebrew writing from the second to the eighteenth century A. D. The earliest examples are in the form of gold and silver amulets from ancient graves in Irbid in the Hauran and date from the first centuries of the Christian era. These amulets were usually inscribed with charms to ward off the evil eye and were carried on the body as a protection against calamities and demons. One of the gold amulets is still accompanied by the small cylindrical beaten gold case in which it was worn. The text is on narrow pieces of foil varying in length from two to five inches and in characters so minute as hardly to be legible without the aid of a lens. Two examples of Hebrew rolls are shown, one much older than the other. The first and earlier, a Pentateuch roll, has an interesting history. It comes from China and belonged to that tribe of Jews who migrated north and settled at K'ai-Fêng Fu in 1163. Here for a long time the colony flourished, having its own rabbis and observing the religious ceremonies of the Jewish faith. At last it fell upon evil times; in 1850, of the seven hundred original families, only seven remained, and the settlement is now practically extinct. The roll probably dates from the fifteenth century. It is on goat- or sheepskin and measures 70 feet 5 inches in length by 23 inches in width. Unfortunately it is imperfect, lacking in all after Leviticus XVIII. This scroll, with others, was brought by its owners to Peking and there sold to Mr. S. Wells Williams, who presented it to the American Bible Society in 1868. The second roll is the Megillah, or roll of Esther, written on goatskin, perhaps in the seventeenth century. Another copy of the Hebrew Pentateuch is shown in a vellum manuscript in book form of the year 1231-1232 A. D. |