As for the cylinders hidden in each angle of a building, none, we believe, have as yet been found in Assyria; perhaps because no search or an inefficient search has been made for them.
We have dwelt at some length upon the orientation of buildings, upon the importance attached to their angle stones, and upon the precautions taken to place an edifice under the protection of the gods, and to preserve the name of its founder from oblivion. We can point to no stronger evidence than that furnished by these proceedings as a whole, of the high civilization to which the people of Chaldæa and Assyria had attained at a very early date. The temple and palace did not spread themselves out upon the soil at the word of a capricious and individual fancy; a constant will governed the arrangement of its plan, solemn rites inaugurated its construction and recommended its welfare to the gods. The texts tell us nothing about the architects, who raised so many noble monuments; we know neither their names, nor their social condition, but we can divine from their works that they had strongly established traditions, and that they could look back upon a solid and careful education for their profession. As to whether they formed one of those close corporations in which the secrets of a trade are handed down from generation to generation of their members, or whether they belonged to the sacerdotal caste, we do not know. We are inclined to the latter supposition in some degree by the profoundly religious character of the ceremonies that accompanied the inception of a building, and by the accounts left by the ancients of those priests whom they called the Chaldæans. It was to these Chaldæans that Mesopotamian society owed all it knew of scientific methods and modes of thought, and it is, perhaps, fair to suppose that they turned to the practice of the arts those intellects which they had cultivated above their fellows. Architecture especially requires something more than manual skill, practice, and natural genius. When it is carried so far as it was in Chaldæa it demands a certain amount of science, and the priests who by right of their intellectual superiority held such an important place in the state, may well have contrived to gain a monopoly as architects to the king. In their persons alone would the scientific knowledge required for such work be combined with the power to accomplish those sacred rites which gave to the commencement of a new building the character of a contract between man and his deity.
NOTES
[397] Loftus, Travels and Researches, p. 171.
[398] Les Fouilles de Chaldée, communication d'une Lettre de M. de Sarzec par M. Léon Heuzey, § 2 (Revue archéologique, November, 1881).
[399] Place, Ninive, vol. i. pp. 17, 18. Botta had previously made the same observation (Monument de Ninive, vol. v. p. 25).
[400] Layard, Discoveries, plan 2, p. 123.
[401] Oppert, Expédition scientifique de Mésopotamie, vol. i. p. 273.
[402] Les Fouilles de Chaldée, communication d'une Lettre de M. de Sarzec, by M. Léon Heuzey (Revue archéologique, November, 1881).
[403] As to the notions attached to these cones, whether sprinkled about the foundations of a building, set up in certain sanctuaries, or carried upon the person, an article published by M. Ledrain, à propos of an agate cone recently added to the collections of the Louvre, may be read with advantage. Its full title is Une Page de Mythologie sémitique (la Philosophie positive, Revue, 14th year, 1882, pp. 209-213).