Texts stating in plain words the opinions of ancient Mesopotamian scholars concerning the shape of the universe have proved elusive, and consequently the question of whether they believed the sky to be flat or domed has never been settled. In 1975 Professor Lambert summarized the comments of earlier scholars on this topic and noted that textual support for the concept of a vault of heaven was lacking in cuneiform sources known to him at that time. Since then, the topic has elicited comment, but no serious attempt to assemble evidence in support of one view or another. In this paper I propose to bring together evidence from a range of sources and argue that in ancient Mesopotamia the sky was thought to be a rotating sphere with a polar axis.

About four miles from Larnaca, in Cyprus, on the western shore of thegreat salt lake from which the town. (Túzla) takes its Turkish name, standsthe Khálat-i-Sulṭán Tekyé, a much - frequented Moslem shrine. The situation is picturesque. The noble outline of the mountain of the Holy Cross (Santa Croce or Stavro Vouni) bounds the view on the west; andthe domes and minaret, embowered in. garden and grove, are not without grace, especially when seen reflected in the still waters of the lake. The shrine is held in great veneration by Moslems of every country; vessels carrying the Ottoman flag salute it as they pass, and the gardens are a favourite place of resort on Musalmán holidays. The whole is dedicated to a lady known as Umm Ḥarámbint Milḥán, whose body lies in this holy place.

The Penal Law of Nepál, a Hindú state, is necessarily founded on the S'ástras; nor is there any thing material in its marvellous crimes, and more marvellous proofs, for which abundance of justificatory texts may not be produced out of the code of Menu, and others equally well known on the plains.

Some hasty observations, collected during a rapid march that I made in 1824, between Punah and Kittor, gave rise to this memoir, which, though brief and imperfect, may not altogether be devoid of interest, since the geology and statistics of few countries are less known than those of India. Connected as this portion of the globe now is with the political and commercial prosperity of Great Britain, the resources of the country, the mineral treasures of its rocks, the capabilities and productions of its soil, the condition of the inhabitants, and their prospect and means of attaining a higher scale of civilisation, deserve the attention of the legislator, merchant, philanthropist, and man of science. Its statistics and geology are yet desiderata: and though the portion of information here communicated be but a speck on the ocean that lies before us, it will perhaps contribute something towards a clearer view and more accurate chart of the whole, which may be brought, I hope, to perfection in the course of time.

The only complete manuscript of this Chronicle of the Bohemians which is known to exist is a folio paper volume written partly in the fourteenth and partly in the early fifteenth century. My efforts to see the MS. itself have so far been unsuccessful, and the following extracts are translated from the text printed by Gelasius Dobner in his Monumenta Historica, Boemiœ nusquam antehac edita, etc., 6 tom. 4to, Pragæ, 1764…85. The Chronicle is in tom, ii, 1768, pp. 79–282. It is entitled Chronicon Reverendissimi Joannis dicti de Marignolis de Florentia Ordinis Minorum Bysinianensis Episcopi …, and begins: Incipit Processus in Cronicum Boemorum, ending, on p. 282, Et sic est finis hujus Cronice Boemorum. The MS., it should be said, was formerly in thelibrary of the Church S. Crucis majoris at Prag, and is now in the University Library in that city.

The project of writing the “Ancient History of Northern India from the Monuments” has long occupied my thoughts, but the duties of my office do not permit me, so long as I remain in active service, to devote the time and attention necessary for the execution and completion of so arduous an undertaking. There is, indeed, little prospect that my project will ever be fully carried into effect by me. Be that as it may, I have made some small progress in the collection of materials, and have been compelled from time to time to make detailed preparatory studies of special subjects. I propose to publish these studies occasionally under the general title of “Prolegomena to Ancient Indian History.” The essay now presented as No. I of the series is that which happens to be the first ready. It grew out of a footnote to the draft of a chapter on the history of Candra Gupta II.

In the final chapter of his novel, The First Circle, Alexander Solzhenitsyn extols the virtues of the felt boot: “A pair of felt boots are the two best friends a prisoner will ever have … Woe then to anyone whose feet are not shod in felt boots! … But the prisoner wearing his own felt boots has not a care in the world.” Solzhenitsyn writes for those unfamiliar with the extremes faced by the society he is describing. Similarly, but far removed in time, we are accustomed to learning a great deal more about the uses of felt among nomadic peoples from travellers who have purportedly visited them than we do from such rare accounts as The Secret History of the Mongols (SH) which emanate from sources close to the nomads themselves.

It is well known that the people of Arakan are an offshoot of the Burman race, the accepted account being that they first crossed the range of mountains called the Arakan Yoma about b.c. 825 under a Prince Kanruga-gyi. It seems probable that the small portion of the country then inhabited was settled by a few of the advance-guard of the Chin-Lushai or IsTaga tribesmen, with perhaps some colonies of Indians on the sea-coast. These were expelled or absorbed; and the Arakanese kingdom, having its centre in the flat open plains of the Akyab district, gradually extended south as far as the Mawyon-gyaw Hills, in the Sandoway district, and north to Chittagong (a.d. 1450). It was finally crushed by an invasion of Burmans from the east of the Yoma in 1784. The people of Arakan have, however, preserved their peculiar dialect, and in certain customs they differ slightly from the Burmese, against whom in some of the purely Arakanese parts is still cherished a deep hatred, born from the cruel manner in which they were handled at the Burmese conquest. It must be admitted, indeed, that in their intertribal wars the peoples of the Tibeto-Burman race have endeavoured to enforce in the strictest possible manner the modern doctrine of the “survival of the fittest.” Owing to the steady immigration into Arakan of natives of India, principally from the Province of Bengal, which has been going on for centuries, the physical type of the people has been sensibly altered from the pure Mongoloid cast of their first progenitors.

Some years ago the late Dr. Trenckner made a transcript of an important Pāli work, the commentary on the Aṇnguttara Nikāya, called Manoratha Pūraṇī (“Wish-Fulfiller”), written by the great Buddhist commentator, Buddhagosha. When this work is added, by-and-bye, to the list of Pāli Texts already published, its value, as a further contribution to our knowledge of early Buddhism, will hardly need putting forward—the book will speak for itself. Meanwhile, as it has not yet been edited, the following short extract from the Text, accompanied by a translation, may not be without interest.

Much discussion having arisen as to whether the Eastern or Western branch of the Indus was formerly the grand stream of the river, and likewise as to the route pursued by Alexander the Great through Sindh, a few remarks from me may perhaps be excused, although the subject is one from which little profit can be derived, and on which it behoves every one to speak with caution and diffidence. Having, however, travelled over a considerable portion of the country, and by personal observation and inquiry made myself acquainted with many circumstances bearing on this topic, I am induced to offer the following facts and surmises for the consideration of those who are in any way interested in the question affecting the route of the Macedonian conqueror; but before entering on this discussion, it will be as well to describe the general features of the Indus as they now exist, in its course through Sindh.

This article engages with the 838–841/1435–1437 Anatolian adventures of the Mamluk amir Jānibak al-Ṣūfī. It demonstrates how Jānibak's narrative is a remarkable story full of meanings, which enable a more nuanced understanding of Mamluk engagements with southern and eastern Anatolia during the reign of sultan al-Ashraf Barsbāy (825–41/1422–38). First Jānibak's whereabouts in Anatolia are reconstructed on the one hand as they appear from contemporary source material and as they have been analysed in a handful of modern studies on the other. Against this historiographical background, a more comprehensive understanding of Jānibak's role and significance is then developed, combining local, Syro-Egyptian and Anatolian readings of Jānibak's story into one integrated social network approach. This reconstruction of Jānibak's social network in the Anatolian frontier zone finally leads to a number of conclusions on the complexity of political life in the 1430s in eastern Anatolia, on the nature of Barsbāy's state, and on the shared realities of 15th-century political cultures in the Nile-to-Black-Sea area.

The overwhelming importance of Kurdish, both language and literature, in Turkish Kurdistan has tended to push all other languages into the background, though some of them are spoken by large and important populations. Zazaki and its literature is one of these that has received far less attention than it deserves, many educated people outside of Turkish Kurdistan being hardly aware of its existence. In this article I have presented the content of fragments from a new Zazaki source. These fragments were fortunately preserved in the binding cover of an old book, which seems to give us at least one of the neglected sources from which the Zazaki writers drew, and carries us back into the memories and the doctrines of the Zazaki community. It has great value as a document of the history of Alevism in Eastern Anatolia.

Recent discoveries at Ur have thrown fresh light upon the Babylonian custom of burying beneath the floors of houses small figures intended to secure the houses and their occupants against sickness and evil spirits. There are texts giving instructions as to how such figures should be used, and examples of the figures themselves were already known, but now we have, to illustrate the texts, a far wider range of types and much more detailed information as to the manner of the actual ritual in connexion with them.

At a time when the United Kingdom accelerated decolonisation and slowly embraced Europe, London gradually lost the means and the will to fulfil its responsibilities to Hong Kong up until the expiry of the New Territories Lease in 1997. Although the immediate cause of this pessimistic mind-set was the leftist riots in 1967, the factors underlying despondency in London had to do with developments before 1967, namely Hong Kong's growing economic prosperity and administrative autonomy from London since the late 1950s, and beyond Hong Kong itself, the global implications of Britain's withdrawal from East of Suez and entry into the European Economic Community by the early 1970s. By 1972 the process of the “decolonisation” of Hong Kong was well underway. Although the British deemed the time unsuitable to initiate formal negotiation with the then Chinese government, they were prepared to take “informal soundings” concerning Hong Kong's future when a new pragmatic leadership emerged and before the crisis of confidence ensued nearer 1997.

The first season of excavations at the medieval Islamic site of Ghubayrā in Kirmān Province took place between late March and the end of May 1971. The excavations were made possible by the kind permission of the Ministry of Art and Culture, and the Iranian Archaeological and Folkloric Services. The excavators record their sincere gratitude to H.E. Mr. Mehrdad Pahlbod, Minister of Art and Culture, and to Mr. A. Pourmand, Director-General of the Iranian Archaeological and Folkloric Services; to Mr. Khurramābādī and Dr. Na‘īmī of that service; and to Mr. Enayatullah Emirloo, who came to Ghubayrā as our Representative. We render thanks too to the local office of the Department of Ferhang va Honar at Kirmān, and especially to its Director, Mr. Mehdi Zamānī. To Mr. Muḥammad Sādeq Dānesh, District Commissioner of Bardsīr, our special acknowledgements are due for his constant thoughtfulness, and his readiness to give assistance in all moments of need.

This district takes its name from Dārā [Darius] the Great, son of King Bahman ibn Isfandiyār.

Dārābjird.—This city was founded by Dārā, son of Bahman. It was built circular as though the line of circumference had been drawn with compasses. A strong fortress stood in the centre of the town, surrounded by a ditch kept full of water, and the fortress had four gates. But now the town lies all in ruins, and nought remains except the wall and the ditch. The climate here is that of the hot region, and there are date-palms. The streams of running water are of bad quality. A kind of bitumen [mūmīyā] is found [near Dārābjird] at a place up in the mountain, which bubbles up and falls drop by drop. Also there is a rock-salt found in these parts which is of seven colours where it comes to the surface of the ground.

Turcologists will all be extremely grateful to Mr. Sinor for his paper on Qapqan in JRAS., Pts. 3 and 4, 1954. It is most important that “delousing” operations of this kind should be performed before delusions get too firm a grip on the public mind. With his general thesis that the word is purely Turkish and not Iranian I wholeheartedly agree, but, with respect, I do not agree with his suggested etymology, and I should be grateful for an opportunity to make some supplementary observations.

1. Great was the reputation of Aristotle in the Middle Ages. His sway was undisputed, and whatever bore his name was sure to be treated as the expression of the highest wisdom. But that fame rested mostly on Arabic translations and interpretations of his philosophical writings. Along with the genuine writings, however, also other treatises were circulated which were ascribed to Aristotle, with what justification has not yet been settled, but probably because some of the ideas put into his mouth seem to have been culled from his genuine writings and others reflected, more or less accurately, views and opinions contained in his writings. Among such pseudo-Aristotelian writings, none enjoyed wider circulation than obtained by the treatise which claimed to represent the “Politeia” of Aristotle.