In Fig. [2], “Q” we have a picture of a fish; the meaning of the Assyrian ideogram derived from it are a “fish,” to “peel” (from preparing a fish for eating), the god Ea, on account of his sometimes being represented in the form of a fish, and finally a “prince,” and “great” from its association with Ea. Below (“R”) is another fish, provided with what appears to be a dorsal fin, hence the signification of the Assyrian sign is “broad” or a “monster.”
Our next illustration (“I”) is concerned with water: we have here the wavy lines for water which is similarly represented in both Egyptian and Chinese hieroglyphics. Below (“J”) we have a representation of the little irrigation ditches by which gardens are watered: hence the cuneiform ideogram derives the meaning of “field” and stands for two distinct Assyrian words—“ginu” and “iklu,” both of which mean “field.” It is somewhat doubtful what the hieroglyph in “K” is intended to represent: Hommel regarded it as a picture of a leathern bottle which would not unnaturally suggest the meaning “desert”; Barton, on the other hand, with perhaps greater probability regards it as a rude outline of the Euphrates valley, with its two rivers and its “occasional sections of irrigated and so fertile land,” indicated by the cross-lines, and he rightly says that this would account for the meanings “plain” and “lands,” and by an extension “desert,” “elevated country,” and last of all “back.” In “L” we see the picture of a house, which however hardly corresponds with our conception of what a house should be: the cuneiform sign derived from it is the ideogram for “bitu” (the Hebrew “Beth” occurring in the proper names Bethlehem, “house of bread,” Bethshemesh, “house of the sun,” etc.), the ordinary Assyrian word for “house.”
Fig. 2.—From Harper’s Old Testament and Semitic Studies, Vol. II, pp. 241 ff.—By permission.
The next figure (“M”) shows us a covered and steaming pot; hence the meanings of the later cuneiform sign are to “burst forth,” “exult,” “rejoice.” “N” is somewhat doubtful, but it probably represents a “priestly garment,” inasmuch as the cuneiform sign derived from it is the Assyrian ideogram for “šangu” a “priest.” “O” is apparently a rude picture of either a crown or a ceremonial umbrella, as the emblem of greatness, the picture of the Assyrian king attended by a slave whose office it is to hold an umbrella over the head of his royal master being, through its frequent occurrence on the bas-reliefs which adorned the walls of the palaces, sufficiently familiar. However that maybe, the cuneiform sign is the ordinary ideogram for “rabu” (the root which occurs in Rabshakeh, Rabsaris, etc.), which means “great”; we have already seen this sign compounded with the picture of a man, the two together meaning “king.” In “P” we see a picture of a bowl in which two tinder-sticks have been inserted with a view to their ignition by friction; hence is derived the meaning of the cuneiform sign developed from it,—“fire.”
As has been already indicated, clay was the material mostly used by the Assyrian and Babylonian scribes for the purposes of writing; but stone was also extensively used from the earliest to the latest times. Stone obelisks, colossal statues of bulls and lions, and last but far from least the bas-reliefs which decorated the walls of the royal palaces were generally covered with an inscription, the wedges sometimes measuring as much as two inches. In writing on sculpture the carved figures were completely ignored, the inscription being chiselled regardlessly through every detail of the carving. Stone was however sometimes used solely and exclusively as the material medium for perpetuating a legal agreement, or immortalizing the work of some self-satisfied grandee, and tablets of limestone or alabaster exist in large numbers, good examples of which are those of Rîm-Sin and Sin-Gamil, rulers of the ancient city of Larsa.
Boundary-stones or land-marks form another interesting class of inscribed stone objects. The texts refer to land-tenure and property conveyancing, while the upper part of most of these boulder-shaped monuments is sculptured in relief with mythological emblems. They belong almost exclusively to the Kassite period. Sometimes a plan of the field seems to have been chiselled on the stone which marked its boundary. A good example of such a boundary-stone is that of Nebuchadnezzar I, which was discovered at Nippur and is published by W. J. Hinke;[45] a further point of interest about this stone is that it is inscribed with a hymn to En-lil, the god of Nippur.
But neither the Babylonians nor the Assyrians confined themselves exclusively to the use of clay and calcareous stone as the material whereon to write their inscriptions. Sometimes the hardest volcanic rocks were employed for the purpose, doubtless in consideration of their durability and power of resisting the devastating influences of time and climate. Thus in the course of the German excavations at Babylon a plate of dolerite measuring about a foot and a half square and bearing an inscription of Adad-nirari the son of Ashur-dan was discovered. So too Dungi and Bur-Sin, kings of Ur (circ. 2350 B.C.), have left us inscriptions chiselled on hard diorite, the inscriptions themselves being of a votive character, while a club-button made of the same material and bearing an inscription of ten lines was found at Babylon. The various statues and stelæ made of these hard igneous stones and found both in Assyria and Babylonia, though more frequently in the mother country, practically always bear an inscription. A good example of an Assyrian inscription on basalt is that found on the basalt statue of Shalmaneser II (860-825 B.C.), which was brought to light in the course of the recent excavations conducted by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft at Ashur. Again the numerous stone gate-sockets discovered in the ruins of early buildings in Babylonia are nearly all inscribed with the name and titles of the person who erected the building, and sometimes the original inscription has been erased or obliterated to make room for the inscription of a later ruler, who knowing full well the difficulty of procuring stone in the low-lying country of Babylonia, was not so short-sighted as to cast away the gate-sockets of his vanquished predecessor, but on the contrary utilized them for his own new building. Thus for example the gate-socket of Lugal-kigub-nidudu, an early king of Sumer, was subsequently used by Shar-Gâni-sharri, king of Akkad, in the construction of his temple at Nippur.
But sometimes stones of comparative rarity, such as lapis lazuli, were employed as a material whereon to engrave inscriptions: thus a tablet made of that material and dedicated by Lugal-tarsi, an early king of Kish, to the god Anu and the goddess Ninni, is preserved in the British Museum, and in the course of the recent excavations at Babylon two bars of lapis lazuli with reliefs and both bearing cuneiform inscriptions were discovered. One of these showed the picture of a god standing up, surmounted with a feather crown, and holding the symbol of lightning in each hand, while his dress is decorated with three shields, and a cuneiform inscription of five lines is further added; on the other, a god in similar posture and dress but holding a staff and ring on his breast and grasping the tail of a double-horned dragon in his right hand is portrayed: the god’s girdle is decorated with figures, while on one of the three shields adorning the raiment, horses are depicted, and there is an accompanying inscription of eight lines.