"سرد لرحلة إلى موقع مدينة بابل في ١٨١١، طُبعت الآن لأول مرة: مذكرات على الأطلال؛ مع نقوش من الخرائط المدبئية للمؤلف: ملاحظات على طبوغرافية بابل القديمة،بقلم الرائد رينيل؛ في إشارة إلى المذكرات: مذكرات ثانية على الأطلال؛ في إشارة إلى ملاحظات الرائد رينيل: مع سرد لرحلة إلى برسبوليس: طُبعت الآن لأول مرة، مع كتابات مسمارية نسخت في برسبوليس ولم تُنشر من قبل: كتبها الراحل كلوديوس جيمس ريتش، المحترم، المقيم البريطاني السابق لشركة الهند الشرقية في بغداد. حررته أرملته." [‎٢] (٤٧٤/٢٩)

ii
INTRODUCTION.
has added, from other sources, some further particu
lars, which seemed requisite in order to complete
the account; but has endeavoured to make the
whole as concise as was possible, consistently with
the object in view, which was to revive the recollec
tions of some readers, to supply information to others,
and to assist the traveller in the East, who can rarely
carry many books of reference about with him.
The first mention we find in history of Babylon,
or Babel, is in the Bible. In the tenth chapter of
Genesis, at the tenth verse, speaking of Nimrod, it
is added, " and the beginning of his kingdom was
Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh in the
land of Shinar."*
It is surely worthy to be observed that little if any
further notice is taken of this great city in the
Sacred Volume, until the time of its connexion
with the history of the Jewish people, and, even
then, our attention is chiefly directed to the punish
ment and ruin that are about to fall upon it for its
wickedness. During this interval it had become the
splendid capital of a most powerful empire—the
teacher of other nations in every kind of knowledge
—'the mistress of the world in arts and sciences, and
civilization! But all these things, so great in the
eyes of men, are passed by in silence, or slightly re
ferred to in the Bible, that History of Nations, written
* This is supposed to have been about 2300 years before Christ,
or about 1300 years after the creation of the world.