The Bronze Age settlements of Baluchistan comprise an assortment of cultures and local wares which stylistic comparison with stratified sites in Persia and Iraq is gradually reducing to a workable chronology. Material, for the most part collected from the surface, abounds: the difficulty lies in its interpretation. With the close of the Bronze Age, however, the problem becomes not so much the interpretation of the material as its scantiness. Throughout Baluchistan there are signs of widespread disturbances during the second millennium B.C.: of cultures dying out and villages destroyed or occupied by alien inhabitants. Across the eastern border the Harappan cities of the Indus Plain were overrun by a semi-barbarian people from the west in or about the fifteenth century B.C. Between that date and the Persian invasion of the North-West Frontier Province some ten centuries later the course of events in Baluchistan is obscure. Of particular interest, therefore, is a new ware from Londo and other sites, which on account of its affinities with Persian pottery as well as on other grounds may be provisionally dated to around 1200-1000 B.C.

The following pages are translated from an unpublished Bodleian MS. They form the first part of the introduction to an Arabic commentary on the Eisagoge of Porphyry, which the title page and the Bodleian catalogue ascribe to the well-known Arab philosopher al-Fārābī (first half of the tenth century A.D.). We know from independent sources that al-Fārābī wrote a commentary to the Eisagoge. This is evidently what we have before us, but the text dealing with the Eisagoge, which was later itself commented on by Avempace, is a different work.

The world empire of the Arabs was already an established fact considerably earlier than A.D. 700, It is generally admitted that the Arabs in the countries which they came to rule were the heirs of classical antiquity to a considerable extent. This is nowhere more evident than in philosophy and the sciences. If at first sight it seems surprising that they made more use of ancient philosophy and science than the general literature and common institutions of the Graeco-Roman world such as the theatre and the gymnasium, the reason is doubtless to be found in the abstract character of these branches, in consequence of which they did not impinge directly on the prejudices of the new rulers.

The document here published belongs to Major Watson and will be exhibited in the Honiton Museum, Honiton, Devonshire, For the kind permission to publish this tablet, I wish to express my best thanks to both Major Watson and the authorities of the Honiton Museum, and at the same time, I owe thanks to Mr. Gadd, the Keeper of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities of the British Museum who suggested this publication.

The Catalogue of the inscriptions discovered during the season of 1950 at Nimrud (Kalḫu) conforms with the system adopted for the publication of tablets discovered in 1949. This summary method of presentation appears to be the most practical way of recording the copious material with a minimum of delay. It is true that ideally a more detailed and definitive publication would be desirable, but it seems of greater importance to make available for scholars such information as can be gleaned from a considered study of the texts within a year of their discovery. Indeed it is doubtful if the contents, which in general conform to types of documents already known, warrant a fuller publication. Moreover the tablets themselves, like most unbaked Assyrian texts, are for the most part fragmentary. As each successive Expedition is likely to recover additional texts of the kind, the danger of postponing publication is all the more evident. It is therefore hoped that due allowance will be made for the inevitable imperfections, some of which might have been eliminated had more time and labour been available for the completion of our task.