[FIRST TURKISH BOOK ON CUNEIFORM] Asurî ve Keldanîlere mahsûs hatt-i mihî hakkinda malûmat-i mücmele. [i.e., A short information on the cuneiform of Assyrians and Chaldeans]

BASMACIYAN, KARABET E. [GARABED BASMADJIAN), (Turco-Armeno paleologist, historian and philologist), (1864-1942), Kasbar Matbaasi / Asir Kitabhanesi, Istanbul, AH 1312 = [1894].

Original wrappers. Not bound. 16mo. (16 x 11 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 27 p., cuneiform examples. Uncut copy, slightly chipped on the extremities of the cover and spine, occasionally foxing on the pages, otherwise, a very good copy.

First and only edition of this first work on cuneiform in the Turkish / Ottoman world.

This pioneering Turkish study, based on the works by the scientists who had conducted the first studies on this field in Europe (Pietro della Valle (1586-1652), French scholar Chardin in the 17th century, etc.), includes thirteen short chapters. In 1894, it was printed in Grigor's Kasbar Press that was an Armenian printing house in the Ottoman Empire. This small but very scarce pamphlet contains the history of cuneiforms, techniques, and the ideographic and syllabic forms of scripts on cuneiforms, their grammar, verb conjugations, singular and plural forms, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, and some common words in Assyrian and Arabic languages.

As of December 2023, five copies in the OCLC 759747521, 1030753497, 947191529 (LoC, Karl Süssheim Collection, no. 1519).; Özege 1146.; TBTK 5676.