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WILSON, H. H : ARIANA ANTUQUA. A Descriptive Account of the Antiquities

AFGHANISTAN'S LONG HISTORY WILSON, H. H. ARIANA ANTIQUA. A Descriptive Account of the Antiquities and Coins of Afghanistan: With a Memoir on the Buildings called Topes, by C. Masson, Esq. London: Published under the Authority of the Honourable the Court of Directors of the East India Company, 1841. Quarto. Xvi,452pp. + 37ff. plates (numbered I-IV, I-IX, I- XXII, plus one large folding map, plus one unnumbered plate showing the Arianian alphabet.) Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860) Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, and Librarian to the East India Company, compiled the first Sanskrit-English dictionary. Charles Masson was actually James Lewis (1800-1853), who adopted the alias after deserting from the British Army in India. Travelling in India and Afghanistan, he learned the local languages, uncovered and documented many important archaeological sites, and collected antiquities. If his advice had been followed, the slaughter of the British Army in Afghanistan in 1841 would have been averted. His description of the "topes" (stupas, or shrines) occupies pp. 55-119. The plates, lithographed by J. Basire, depict the stupas and some of the finds, including over 500 coins which document the various dynasties, from Alexander the Great to the 7th century, which ruled Afghanistan, or "Ariana Antiqua." The work of Wilson and Masson provided most nineteenth- century knowledge of the early history of the area between India and Persia. Internally fine, in original publisher's ribbed cloth decorated in blind and titled in gilt. Corners bumped; some spotting, fading and wear to spine ends, rear internal hinge is cracked. Laid-in are three photographs, perhaps from the 1950s. Two (measuring 8x10 inches and 5x8 inches) show a stupa in a deserted area, with a man in a sola topee and jodhpurs, and one (8x10 inches) shows a dry mountainous area. Scarce., Fine

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