ANTIQUITIES, a term implying all testimonies, or authentic accounts, that have come down to us of ancient nations. According to Lord Bacon, antiquities may be considered as the wrecks of history, or such particulars as industrious and learn ed persons have collected from genealo gies, inscriptions, monuments, coins, names, etymologies archives, instru ments, fragments oflistory, &c.: in this sense the study of antiquities leads us to inquire into the origin and early epochas of every nation and people whether an cient or modern. Hence the study of an tiquities, as a science, has become, in al most every civilized country, an interest ing pursuit to men of leisure and curiosi ty. Ey many persons it has been sufficient to investigate the ancient remains of Greece and Rome ; but others, who have taken a more enlarged, and, what we deem, a more proper view of the subject, include in the science the antiquities of the Jews, Egyptians, Phcenicians, Cartha ginians, and, in short, all those principal nations mentioned in ancient history. Our view of the subject must necessarily be contracted, and the most we can aim at is, to excite a laudable curiosity in the young, and to direct them to objects that may engage their attention, and to the authors most likely to furnish infoxmation under the several heads of inquiry and research.
'This study has for its chief objects the ceremonies, customs, and usages, which obtained in ancient times, either with re gard to persons, places, or things. Writ ers have accordingly divided antiquities into civil and ecclesiastisal ; including under the former head whatever relates to political, military, literary, and domes tic concerns; and under the latter, the subjects connected ivith religion, as the worship, discipline, and faith of ancient times andpeople. 'Christians have usually separated their antiquities into those which relate to the ancient state of the Christian church; and into whatever be longs to the ancient laws, ceremonies, events, ke. that occur in the scriptures. These, indeed, farm a branch of ecclesi astical antiquities, and bear a near rcla tion to the Jewish antiquities, concerning which we have many respectable authori ties. There are persons who would de duce most of the heathen antiquities from the manners and customs described in the Bible ; while others, as Spencer, take the opposite course, and deduce the antiqui ties of the Bible from those of heathenism.
Perhaps a middle course would be nearer the truth, as it is absolutely necessary, in interpreting scripture, to attend to the heathen antiquities alluded to in them; and these not only such as are directly aimed at or approved, but also such as are purposely opposed. National antiquities are those employed in tracing the origin, ancient actions, usages, monuments, re mains, &c. of some nation or people : and it may be observed, that almost every na tion lays claim to a greater degree of an tiquity than the rest of its neighbours. The Seythians, the Phrygians, the Choi deans, Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, 8:c. pretend each to have the honotir of being the first inhabitants of the earth : several of these nations, lest they should be sur passed in their pretensions by any of the rest, have traced up their origin to ages long before the receive() account of the creation. Hence the appellations, "abori gines," "indigenx,""terrxgenx," " ante lunares," &e.
The history and antiquities of nations and societies have been objects of inquiry: inasmuch as they enable the mind to se parate truth from falsehood, and tradition from evidence ; to establa what hacl pro bability for its basis, or to explode what rested only on the vanity of the inventors and propagators : of this we have a strik ing instance in the Chaldeans, who pre tend to astronomical observations of nearly 500,000 years. They mention the king who reigned over them at the time'of the deluge, and attribute to him several things which we ascribe to Noah. The Chaldaic antiquities of Berostis are, however, lost, except a few fragments, which have been collected by Joseph Scaliger and Pabri eitis. To sup?Iy the chasm, AnniusViter bo, a Dominican monk, towards the close of the 151.11 century, forged the work of Berosus, which he pubLshed at Rome in 1498. Ile went farther, and produced a supplement to Berosus;supposed to have been written by Manetho, containing de tails of.what happened from the time of JEgyptus, king bf Egypt, to the origin of the Roman state. Unfortunately for the credit of the industrious monk, Manetho lived before Berosus, by which the fraud was detected.