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

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

Original wrappers. Probably taken from a volume including multiple tractates. Trimmed top margins, slight stains on pages. A fair/good copy. 16mo. (16 x 11 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 27 p., cuneiform examples.

First and only edition of this first tractate on Assyrian and Chaldean 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 13 chapters. In 1894, it was printed in Grigor's Kasbar Press that it's an Armenian printing house in the Ottoman Empire. This small but very scarce pamphlet contains the history of cuneiforms, the techniques, and the ideographic and the 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.

Five copies in OCLC 759747521, 1030753497, 947191529 (Library of Congress. Karl Süssheim Collection, no. 1519).; Özege 1146.; TBTK 5676.