Inscriptions on Two Tombs in the Desert, Antique Print, 1776

This is an original antique copper engraving from 1776, plate XLVI of the first volume of Carsten Niebuhr's Voyage en Arabie. The caption below the image reads Beeld-schriften op twee Graf-Steenen in de Woestyne. in Dutch and Hierogliphes sur deux Tombes dans le Desert. in French, meaning hieroglyphs on two tombstones in the desert.

The plate is printed across the width of the sheet and shows two inscriptions side by side, each inside its own double ruled frame. The left stone is copied in eleven horizontal rows, the right in twelve. The signs are drawn in solid hatched silhouette: birds of several kinds, seated and kneeling figures, a striding animal in the top row of the left stone and the second row of the right, snakes, eyes, baskets, loaves and water lines. Some passages are shown as damaged: in the left stone two patches of stippling stand for worn areas of the surface, one at the start of the fourth row and one at the end of the seventh. In the eleventh row of the right stone a few signs are enclosed in a rounded outline.

The lower left margin is lettered C. J. de Huyser, direx., naming the director of the engraving, and the plate number Tab. XLVI. is engraved vertically along the right margin.

The plate belongs to the first volume of Niebuhr's Voyage en Arabie & en d'autres Pays circonvoisins, marked TOME PREMIER and Traduit de l'Allemand on its title page, which carries the imprint of S. J. Baalde at Amsterdam and J. van Schoonhoven and Comp. at Utrecht and the date MDCCLXXVI. The account was first published in German at Copenhagen; this is the French translation printed in Amsterdam and Utrecht. Carsten Niebuhr (1733 to 1815) was a German born surveyor in Danish service and the only member of the Danish expedition to Arabia (1761 to 1767), sent by King Frederick V of Denmark, to return alive.

Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the bottom and right edges. Foxing over much of the margin. Several larger brown marks. Small chips at the lower left corner and along the bottom edge.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.