Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/87

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BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
71

publication of “The Nabathæan Agriculture” in the times of Nebuchadnezzar, is met again feature for feature in the Arsacidan or Sassinidan book of Tenkelúshá. Can it be admitted that in fifteen, or even in eight centuries (to confine ourselves to the calculation adopted by our deceased brother, M. Quatremère, nothing should have been altered in Babylon, and that two works composed at such a long interval should evince so striking a resemblance? A deduction of the same kind, and decisive, may be drawn from the very title of the work. The author, after the epithet البابلي‎, puts that of القوقاني‎. Dr. Chwolson considers that this epithet designates a School;[1] and I will not argue the point with him. But Kúthámí too assumes the title of القوقاني‎. Yarbúká, much more ancient, according to Prof. Chwolson, also bears the same epithet of القوقاني‎. Can any one conceive it probable that the same school should have continued for two thousand years, and that, by some

  1. P. 31 ff.