50.—CHALDEAN CYLINDER AND IMPRESSION.
(Perrot and Chipiez.)
51.—ASSYRIAN CYLINDER.
(Perrot and Chipiez.)
15. The clay tablets of the ancient Chaldeans are distinguished from the Assyrian ones by a curious peculiarity: they are sometimes enclosed in a case of the same material, with exactly the same inscription and seals as on the inner tablet, even more carefully executed.[U] It is evidently a sort of duplicate document, made in the prevision that the outer one might be injured, when the inner record would remain. Rows of figures across the tablet are impressed on it with seals called from their shape cylinders, which were rolled over the soft moist clay. These cylinders were generally of some valuable, hard stone—jasper, amethyst, cornelian, onyx, agate, etc.,—and were used as signet rings were later and are still. They are found in great numbers, being from their hardness well-nigh indestructible. They were generally bored through, and through the hole was passed either a string to wear them on, or a metal axis, to roll them more easily.[V] There is a large and most valuable collection of seal cylinders at the British Museum. Their size ranges from a quarter of an inch to two inches or a little more. But cylinders were also made of baked clay and larger size, and then served a different purpose, that of historical documents. These are found in the foundations of palaces and temples, mostly in the four corners, in small niches or chambers, generally produced by leaving out one or more bricks. These tiny monuments range from a couple of inches to half a foot in height, seldom more; they are sometimes shaped like a prism with several faces (mostly six), sometimes like a barrel, and covered with that compact and minute writing which it often requires a magnifying glass to make out. Owing to their sheltered position, these singular records are generally very well preserved. Although their original destination is only to tell by whom and for what purpose the building has been erected, they frequently proceed to give a full though condensed account of the respective kings' reigns, so that, should the upper structure with its engraved annals be destroyed by the vicissitudes of war or in the course of natural decay, some memorial of their deeds should still be preserved—a prevision which, in several cases, has been literally fulfilled. Sometimes the manner and material of these records were still more fanciful. At Khorsabad, at the very interior part of the construction, was found a large stone chest, which enclosed several inscribed plates in various materials. "... In this only extant specimen of an Assyrian foundation stone were found one little golden tablet, one of silver, others of copper, lead and tin; a sixth text was engraved on alabaster, and the seventh document was written on the chest itself."[W] Unfortunately the heavier portion of this remarkable find was sent with a collection which foundered on the Tigris and was lost. Only the small plates,—gold, silver, copper and tin (antimonium scholars now think it to be)—survived, and the inscriptions on them have been read and translated. They all commemorate, in very nearly the same terms, the foundation and erection of a new city and palace by a very famous king and conqueror, generally (though not correctly) called Sargon, and three of them end with a request to the kings his successors to keep the building in good repair, with a prayer for their welfare if they do and a heavy curse if they fail in this duty: "Whoever alters the works of my hand, destroys my constructions, pulls down the walls which I have raised,—may Asshur, Ninêb, Ramân and the great gods who dwell there, pluck his name and seed from the land and let him sit bound at the feet of his foe." Most inscriptions end with invocations of the same kind, for, in the words of Ménant: "it was not mere whim which impelled the kings of Assyria to build so assiduously. Palaces had in those times a destination which they have no longer in ours. Not only was the palace indeed the dwelling of royalty, as the inscriptions have it,—it was also the Book, which each sovereign began at his accession to the throne and in which he was to record the history of his reign."[X]
And each such book of brick and stone we can with perfect truth call a chapter—or a volume—of the great Book of the Past whose leaves are scattered over the face of the earth.
52.—PRISM OF SENNACHERIB. ALSO CALLED "TAYLOR CYLINDER."