Linguistics table. 17th century table titled 'Tabula Combinatoria'. The description at top says that this is 'a combinatory table showing the most ancient alphabets of the world, from which it can be seen that all modern alphabets retain vestiges of the ancient forms'. This table is from the work 'Turris Babel' (Tower of Babel, 1679) by the German Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). It was one of the first books about the language and archaeology of the ancient civilisations of Babylon, Nineveh and Egypt. Languages mentioned here include Samaritan, Hebrew and Syrian. Also mentioned are cryptographic codes and authors, such as Abraham of Balmis and the 'transitus fluminis' characters.