Another interesting octagonal prism of this same king has been recently acquired by the British Museum (No. 103,000). It contains information regarding two campaigns not recorded elsewhere. The first of these, which took place in 698 B.C., was undertaken to suppress a revolt in Cilicia; the campaign was completely successful and the Assyrian power was entirely restored in those regions. It is interesting to note that the city of Tarsus was one of those which Sennacherib sacked on this occasion. The second campaign took place three years later in 695 B.C., and resulted in the siege and capture of a certain city called Til-Garimum in the land of Tubal, which lay to the north-east of Cilicia. We are also furnished with an account of the rebuilding and fortification of Nineveh by Sennacherib, which contains valuable information regarding the inner and outer wall of the city, and the positions and names of the fifteen gates. It is dated in the eponymy[46] of Ilu-Ittia, the Assyrian governor of Damascus. This cylinder was apparently buried as a foundation memorial in the structure of one of the city gates referred to in the text.

Esarhaddon, Sennacherib’s son and successor, has likewise left us a number of hexagonal prisms of historic importance. One of the principal events narrated on Esarhaddon’s cylinders is the siege and capture of Sidon and the subjugation of the surrounding country. Ashur-bani-pal, Esarhaddon’s famous son and successor, has left us a number of cylinders and prisms, but by far the most important is that upon which an account of the principal events of the early part of his reign is inscribed (Brit. Mus., No. 91,026). We have here a record of his first and second Egyptian campaigns, of the defeat he inflicted upon Tirhakah, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, and the sack of Thebes, the capital of the country. The capture of Tyre is also narrated and the campaign against Te-Umman, king of Elam, whom Ashur-bani-pal slew and whose severed head is seen hanging from a tree in the bas-relief in which Ashur-bani-pal and his wife are reclining at meat in their garden. There is also an account of the siege and capture of Babylon, whose king Shamash-shum-ukîn had thrown off the suzerainty of Assyria; the conquest of Arabia is recorded as well as the final triumph of the Assyrian arms over Elam, and the text concludes with an account of Ashur-bani-pal’s building operations.

We have already alluded to a clay cylinder belonging to the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus, while another cylinder of the same king, which has been discussed elsewhere (cf. p. [7]), is equally notable, as a complete system of chronology has been based upon its contents. Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon 604-561 B.C., and belonging to the same dynasty has likewise left us a number of barrel-shaped cylinders, the inscriptions upon which are chiefly concerned with a recital of his building achievements, while to the cylinder of Cyrus the Persian conqueror of Babylonia (538 B.C.) reference has been made elsewhere (cf. p. [74]). But the practice of writing cuneiform inscriptions on baked clay cylinders did not even come to an end with the Persian kings of Babylonia, for we have a cylinder (Brit. Mus. 36277) bearing an inscription in archaic Babylonian characters, of Antiochus Soter, king of Babylonia about 280 B.C.; it records the restoration of the temples E-Sagil, and E-zida in Babylon and Borsippa in the year 270 B.C., and concludes with a prayer to the god Nebo on behalf of Antiochus, his son Seleucus and his wife.

But besides rectangular, round, barrel-shaped, cylindrical and cone-shaped clay inscriptions, yet other varieties exist. Among these a four-sided block of clay forming an elongated kind of cube, the height of which is 9-1/2 inches and the breadth of each of its four sides 3-3/4 inches (Brit. Mus. No. 92611), deserves a mention; its date is about 2100 B.C., and it is inscribed with lists of the names of fish, birds, plants, stones and garments.

Another unique object is a clay model of an ox-hoof (Brit. Mus. No. R. 620), inscribed with forecasts. A somewhat similar object is found in a clay model of a sheep’s liver, also preserved in the British Museum (No. 92,668); the inscription which it bears is magical in character, and the object was probably used for divination purposes. Other tablets, though not being moulded in the form of a sheep’s liver, bear the incised outlines of different parts of the liver. Hepatoscopy, or the practice of deriving omens from the shape, size, or condition of the liver, was one of the most popular forms of magic among the Babylonians and Assyrians.

Plans of cities seem to have sometimes been drawn on clay tablets, a good example of which is afforded by a tablet discovered at Nippur, and incised with a plan of that city, a plan which in spite of its antiquity seems to have helped the work of the excavators in no small degree. Another example is the British Museum fragment (No. 35385), on which a plan of part of the city of Babylon is still to be seen. Sometimes the plan was merely that of an estate (cf. Brit. Mus. No. 31483), but in one instance at all events, the world itself is the subject (Brit. Mus. No. 92687), the most interesting feature of which from the geographical point of view is the world-encircling ocean—the Babylonians believing the earth to be surrounded by and apparently supported on water: the earth itself was supposed to resemble an inverted saucer in shape, while the heavens bore the same shape, the only difference being that they were obviously more extensive, and the lower edges rested on the earth itself, while the edge of the earth rested upon the ocean.

Sometimes amulets were made of clay, a good example of which is Brit. Mus. No. 85-4-8, 1; it is shaped like a cylinder-seal, and is inscribed with an incantation for Shamash-Killâni.

Other inscribed clay objects are those known as astrolabæ or instruments for making astrological calculations.

Fig. 3.Fig. 4. (Brit. Mus., 103040.)