Note 194 — Chapter IV

There is a very ancient local tradition at Shŭsh, that A.D. 640, in the reign of the Kaliph Omar, the body of the prophet Daniel was found, wrapped in cloth of gold, in a stone coffin; and, by order of the victorious general, it was placed in one of glass, and moored to the bridge which spanned the branch of the Euphrates flowing between the two halves of the city, so that the waters flowed over it. See “Chaldea and Susiana,” by Loftus, and Sir G. W. Gore Ouseley’s translation of a Persian version of “The Book of Victories.” Alexander is said to have been buried in a glass coffin. (See Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians,” ii. p. 102, note †.)