[RUSSIA-COLOR PLATE]
PORTER, ROBERT KER. Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia &c. &c. during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. London: Longman etc., 1821-22. First edition. Two volumes, fine full modern scarlet morocco gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges speckled sepia. 10 7/8 x 8 1/4 inches (27.5 x 21 cm); xxiii, [1], 720 pp.; vi (last leaf numbered vi-x as per Abbey), xi-xiv, [xv, xvi-plate list, errata], 869, [1], 2 pp. ads.; with 88 plates, of which 5 are in color and 27 folding together with two portrait frontispieces and two folded maps. Occasional toning or foxing, generally minor, but in all a fresh copy. There is no half-title or plate list in the first volume; Abbey notes these in the second volume only, so this copy collates complete (and has been collated against Abbey, identical plates though some difference in plate numbering).
In August 1817, Porter left from St. Petersburg on a prolonged expedition, which was to take him through the Caucasus to Teheran. His account of what is now Iran is an important early source for the region. He visited the site of ancient Persepolis, where he made drawings of the monuments and transcribed a number of cuneiform inscriptions, which make this work of considerable interest in the history of Assyriology. He travelled further, to Shiraz, Isfahan, Ecbatana and Baghdad, and then on to Scutari, following the route of Xenophon's Persian expedition with the Ten Thousand. He was the first in modern times to locate the mausoleum of Cyrus the Great near Shiraz. Abbey Travel 359.