Thomas, Edward Early Sassanian inscriptions, seals and coins. London Trubner & Co 1868
First edition. 8vo (23 x 15 cm), pp.viii, 137, [1] 56 [advertisements], mounted photographic frontispiece, folding plate, illustrations in text. A very good copy in original publisher's cloth. Spine faded.

With the first publication of Henry Rawlinson's discovery of the Paikuli inscriptions: a survey of all known Middle Persian inscriptions in stone, seals, and coins, with much on the Hajiabad inscriptions, discovered near Persepolis by Robert Ker Porter in 1818 which remained untranslated until Hendrik Samuel Nyberg published his Swedish translation in 1945. Nyberg described this as "a very learned book", adding that its "readings, translations, and historical comments are best passed over in silence" but that it "is interesting and still of some use", identifying its value as a thorough summary of all previous exploration and research with "ample bibliographical references", and the first appearance in print of Rawlinson's description of Paikuli and its inscriptions, from copies he had given to Edward Thomas (Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1960), p.41). Edward Thomas (1813-1886) served as a Company officer in India from 1832 to 1857, and devoted the final decades of his life to numismatic and antiquarian study, publishing numerous essays and books on subjects ranging from Mughal revenues to early Indian weights.