rmanent. In the palace of Assurbanipal a complete library
of brick tablets has been found in which brick serves the purpose of
paper.

=Cuneiform Writing.=--For many years the cuneiform writing has
occupied the labors of many scholars impatient to decipher it. It has
been exceedingly difficult to read, for, in the first place, it served
as the writing medium of five different languages--Assyrian, Susian,
Mede, Chaldean, and Armenian, without counting the Old Persian--and
there was no knowledge of these five languages. Then, too, it is very
complicated, for several reasons:

1. It is composed at the same time of symbolic signs, each of
which represents a word (sun, god, fish), and of syllabic signs,
each of which represents a syllable.

2. There are nearly two hundred syllabic signs, much alike and
easy to confuse.

3. The same sign is often the representation of a word and a
syllable.

4. Often (and this is the hardest condition) the same sign is used
to represent different syllables. Thus the same sign is sometimes
read "ilou," and sometimes "an." This writing was difficult even
for those who executed it. "A good half of the cuneiform monuments
which we possess comprises guides (grammars, dictionaries,
pictures), which enable us to decipher the other half, and which
we consult just as Assyrian scholars did 2,500 years ago."[19]

Cuneiform inscriptions have been solved in the same manner as the
Egyptian hieroglyphics--there was an inscription in three
languages--Assyrian, Mede, and Persian. The last gave the key to the
other two.

=The Assyrian People.=--The Assyrians were a race of hunters and
soldiers. Their bas-reliefs ordinarily represent them armed with bow
and lance, often on horseback. They were good knights--alert, brave,
clever in skirmish and battle; also bombastic, deceitful, and
sanguinary. For six centuries they harassed Asia, issuing from their
mountains to hurl themselves on their neighbors, and returning with
entire peoples reduced to slavery. They apparently made war for the
mere pleasure of slaying, ravaging, and pillaging. No people ever
exhibited greater ferocity.

=The King.=--Following Asiatic usage they regarded their king as the
representative of God on earth and gave him blind obedience. He was
absolute master of all his subjects, he led them in battle, and at
their head fought against other peoples of Asia. On his return he
recorded his exploits on the wa