8vo. x, 478 pp., 7 colour lithographs including a frontispiece, vignette on title page, 1 folding map, half-title, tables, illustrations in text, contemporary embossed buckram, rubbed round edges, title gilt on raised spine, all edges gilt, occasional spotting, stain mark on upper cover, small library stamp verso title page, otherwise copy in very good condition, Chez Benjamin Duprat, Paris, first edition, 1861.

Synopsis

Extremely Rare. This is Langlois’s account of his archaeological expedition in 1852 to the Taurus Mountains in Asia Minor. He was one of the few Europeans who visited Taurus area in the 19th century. Immediately after his return to Paris in 1854, he published a small size work (55 pages) entitled “Rapport sur l’exploration archéologique de la Cilicie et de la Petite-Arménie, pendant les années 1852-1853”. He also published hundred and eighty-two texts dealing with literature of ancient coins. Langlois wrote on many subjects, especially Armenia and the numismatics of the Caucasus and the Arabs (“Numismatique Des Arabes Avant L’Islamisme”, Paris 1859).
This work is the fruit of his voyage and discoveries and deals mainly with “Little Armenia”, the medieval word for Cilicia. It is a description of the area, its topography, its natural history, races, languages, religions, trade, production of goods, agriculture, government and history. It also includes a narrative, “Journal de voyage”, in which he describes the several expeditions he made from the capital to north, west, and east of Cilicia.
The volume also has discussions and analysis of the ruins, monuments, inscriptions and all kinds of relics collected or examined by the traveller in the four regions of Cilicia: Cilicia of the Mountains, Cilicia of the West or the Plains, the Cilician Taurus, and Cilicia of the East. The antiquities of each site and city are described separately; and the descriptions have extensive historical notes of each place, and of their natural surroundings.
Langlois made Taurus his centre, from where he explored the entire country; he spent usually from two to six weeks on his journeys.
This edition is complete as issued with its splendid hand coloured lithographic illustrations.
Bibliographic references: Chadenat 618 (for the edition with the woodcut plates); Atabey 666; Weber I, 587; Henze III, 123; Hage Chahine 262 2nd Blackmer Sale 1309 (also only 7 plates).