Inscriptions from Persepolis
Date
6 July 1668
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p253a
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 313mm
width (page): 195mm
width (page): 195mm
Subject
Description
These inscriptions taken by Stephen Flowers, agent of the East India Company, were sent by Benjamin Lannoy, consul at Aleppo, to Henry Oldenburg in a letter dated 6 July 1668. The letter was read to the Royal Society on 19 November 1668, and the inscriptions were printed in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 17, no. 201 (June 1693).
Object history
In the meeting of the Royal Society on 19 November 1668, ‘Mr. Oldenburg produced and read a letter from Mr. Lannoy, consul at Aleppo, dated there July 6, 1668, giving an account to the society of what Mr. Stephen Flower, the agent for the English East-India company in Persia, had done there, in order to satisfy queries formerly sent thither, and particularly those concerning the rusma and the ruins of Persepolis. […] It was ordered, that the specimens of the curiosities accompanying this letter, viz. some rusma, both crude and ground, and another substance, called mordersang or stone of death, said to be a rank poison, when taken inwardly, be put in the repository; and that as to the draught of the pictures and bass relieves of Persepolis, Mr. Flower should be informed, that since that could not be made but with great charge, the society would not give him any further trouble about it, especially as those things did not contribute to their main design, and their revenues was not so considerable as to enable them to be at great expences’ (Birch 2:324-26).
Printed in Francis Aston, ‘A letter with a paper of S. Flower, An exact draught or copy of the several characters engraven in marble at the Mountains Nocturestand and Chahelminar in Persia as they were taken in November 1667’, Phil. Trans. vol. 17, no. 201 (June 1693), pp. 775-77.
Printed in Francis Aston, ‘A letter with a paper of S. Flower, An exact draught or copy of the several characters engraven in marble at the Mountains Nocturestand and Chahelminar in Persia as they were taken in November 1667’, Phil. Trans. vol. 17, no. 201 (June 1693), pp. 775-77.
Related fellows
Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
Associated place