Professor Lyon's Lecture.

The third lecture in the course of four under the auspices of the Department of French and the Cercle Francais was given by Professor Lyon last evening in the Fogg Museum, on the Work of the French Assyriologists.

We find distinct evidence of a high civilization in Babylon as early as 3800 B. C., and by 1500 B. C. the Babylonian-Assyrian culture had spread over Western Asia to the Mediterranean. But our knowledge of that civilization, said the lecturer, has come to us during the present century, most of it indeed since 1840. The French began investigations in Assyria in 1843, the English in 1845, and a society in Philadelphia has during the past six years made some valuable discoveries. In 1842 M. Botta, French consul at Mosul, was instructed by his government to make some explorations. He excavated near Nineveh an old Assyrian palace, probably built about 700 B. C. The palace has over two hundred chambers. This great discovery is exhaustively described and illustrated in five folio volumes on the subject published by the French government. Mr. Austin Henry Layard, an Englishman, took up the work at Nineveh in 1845-7. Victor Place made some valuable excavations at Khorsabad in 1851-55, an account of which was published in 1857 and again in 1870. Both Botta and Place were especially interested in the Assyrian architecture and sculpture, and much of our knowledge of these arts is due to them. De Sarzec in 1887 dug up near the Persian Gulf some statues in the round, cut in hard, highly polished stone. De Clecq made a study of the Assyrian seals, and a volume of beautiful engravings of these cylinders has been published by the French government. Pierrot and Chipiez's book on Assyrian art is valuable, especially for restorations.

The work of the English, French, and German Assyriologists is very characteristic. The English work has all been done, or at least begun, by individuals, but in France the government has carried on the work from first to last. The English have been especially interested in the Biblical side of the discoveries. The French on the other hand have made a special study of Assyrian art. Finally the Germans are the linguists and philologists. To them we owe the best dictionaries, catalogues, and the most precise interpretations and discipherments.

Professor Lyon then explained at some length the decipherment of the inscriptions, and closed the lecture with views of Assyrian ruins, restorations and inscriptions.