A CHEAP PURCHASE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 53, 4 March 1939, Page 13

A CHEAP PURCHASE

Link with Alexander the Great

about an ancient Persian 1 manuscript written nearly 2000 years ago for which an offer of £55,000 was made by the British Museum have been made public at Calcutta. It belongs to a scion of the old French nobility. He is a great traveller and about 18 months ago, while touring Central Asia, his caravan halted near a small village north of Samarkand. Here he learned of the recent death nf an old recluse who for many years had lived alone amidst the ruins of what appeared to have been at one

time a big residence of considerable importance probably that of some great chieftain. Among the effects of the old man was found an iron-bound box. Struck by the appearance of one of the papyrus manuscripts in it the traveller purchased it for the local equivalent Of a few shillings. It tells the family history and the chequered adventures of a certain prince or satrap named Fedrous Arascid, a Chief of Sogdiana, and a descendant of Antigonus who followed Alexander the Great, written in 171 E.C. by one Reza Oawardun.