ps, sometimes men in combination with animals. A scene in
which a lion is disturbed in its feast off a bullock, by a man armed with
a club and a mace or hatchet, possesses remarkable spirit, and, were it
not for the strange drawing of the lion's unlifted leg, might be regarded
as a very creditable performance. In another, a lion is represented
devouring a prostrate human being; while a third exhibits a pugilistic
encounter after the most approved fashion of modern England. It is
perhaps uncertain whether these tablets belong to the Chaldaean or to the
Babylonian period, but on the whole their rudeness and simplicity favor
the earlier rather than the later date.

[Illustration: PLATE 14]

The only other works having anything of an artistic character, that can
be distinctly assigned to the primitive period, are a certain number of
engraved cylinders, some of which are very curious. [PLATE XIV., Fig. 1]
It is clearly established that the cylinders in question, which are
generally of serpentine, meteoric stone, jasper, chalcedony, or other
similar substance, were the seals or signets of their possessors, who
impressed them upon the moist clay which formed the ordinary material for
writing. They are round, or nearly so, and measure from half an inch to
three inches in length; ordinarily they are about one-third of their
length in diameter. A hole is bored through the stone from end to end,
so that it could be worn upon a string; and cylinders are found in some
of the earliest tombs which have been worn round the wrist in this way.
In early times they may have been impressed by the hand; but afterwards
it was common to place them upon a bronze or copper axis attached to a
handle, by means of which they were rolled across the clay from one end
to the other. The cylinders are frequently unengraved, and this is most
commonly their condition in the primitive tombs; out there is some very
curious evidence, from which it appears that the art of engraving them
was really known and practised (though doubtless in rare instances) at a
very early date. The signet cylinder of the monarch who founded the most
ancient of the buildings at Mugheir, Warka, Senkareh, and Niffer, and who
thus stands at the head of the monumental kings, was in the possession of
Sir R. Porter; and though it is now lost, an engraving made from it is
preserved in his "Travels." [PLATE XIV., Fig. 2.] The signet cylinder
of this monarch's son has been recen