Word: babylonian
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...poems, notably "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "To Autumn." Other collections range from John Donne and George Herbert to E. A. Robinson and Thomas Wolfe. Philip Hofer's Graphic Arts Collection is another prize feature of the Library--a summary of the best in book design from Babylonian cuneiform tablets to the latest printing innovations...
...Pittsburgh, far from the pennant hubbub, baseball fans were experiencing another kind of emotional turmoil. They had nothing but scorn for the impotent Pirates (who were 28 games out of first place), but they kept paying their way into Forbes Field to gaze, with the dewy-eyed reverence of Babylonian idol worshipers, upon big, amiable, good-looking Ralph McPherram Kiner. There was no doubt in any Pittsburgher's mind that easy-going Ralph was the biggest man in big-league baseball...
...historians of Babylon, N.Y. got the Board on Geographic Names to reverse itself, make the name of their creek Sumpwams, instead of Sumpwams. Expressing gratification, J. H. McAllister of the Babylon Leader explained: "It's an old Indian name-somewhere between a grunt and something else." The ordinary Babylonian, however, went on calling it East Creek...
...George G. Cameron, an Elamitist (authority on the ancient state of Elam), would soon be busy with his research. There, some 2,500 years ago, King Darius of Persia had his portrait carved along with ten of his liquidated enemies. Long inscriptions in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian tell how Darius attributed his success up to this point (later his armies were soundly whipped by the Greeks at Marathon) to the favor of his god, Ahura Mazda, and to the fact that he was "neither a liar nor an evildoer, neither I nor any of my family...
These inscriptions were the "Rosetta Stone of Western Asia" which enabled scholars to decipher Babylonian and the other cuneiform languages of ancient Mesopotamia. About 100 years ago, philologists dangled from the cliff to copy part of the inscriptions; they tried it again in 1904. But much was missed or garbled, and the inscriptions are too inaccessible to be photographed effectively. The Cameron party will make accurate copies by pressing a rubber compound against the carvings. Orientalists all over the world are eagerly awaiting the results...