] MASPERO, _Histoire ancienne_, p. 506.

[81] STRABO, xvi. i. 5.

Sec. 6.--_The Chaldaean Religion._

We know much less about the religion of Chaldaea than about that of Egypt.
The religious monuments of Mesopotamia are much fewer than those of the
Nile valley, and their significance is less clear. Their series are neither
so varied nor so complete as those of the earlier civilization. Certain
orders of subjects are repeated to satiety, while others, which would be
more interesting, are completely absent.

It is in funerary inscriptions that the heart of man, touched by the
mystery of the tomb, lays bare its aspirations with the greatest frankness
and simplicity. Moved by the desire to escape annihilation on the one hand
and posthumous sufferings on the other, it is there that he addresses his
most ardent appeals to the supreme power, and allows us to arrive at a
clear understanding of his ideas as to the action, the character, and the
power of the divinity. At Memphis, Abydos, and Thebes, documents of this
kind have been found in thousands, the figures accompanying them serving as
commentaries upon their text, and helping us to clear up all doubts as to
their nature. We thus have voices speaking from the depths of every
Egyptian tomb; but the Chaldaean sepulchre is mute. It has neither
inscriptions, nor bas-reliefs, nor paintings. No Assyrian burial-place has
yet been found.

Dedications, phrases of homage to this or that divinity, the names and
distinguishing epithets of the gods, all these have been met with in
Mesopotamia; sometimes _in situ_, as artistic decorations, sometimes in
engraved fragments of unknown origin. We may say the same of the different
divine types. Sometimes we find them in monumental sculpture, more often on
those seals which we call _cylinders_. But how obscure, incomplete, and
poor such documents are in comparison with the long pages of hieroglyphs in
which the Pharaohs address their gods or make them speak for themselves!
How infinitely inferior in expression and significance to the vast pictures
which cover the walls of the Theban temples and bring all the persons of
the Egyptian pantheon before us in their turn! What hope is there that
excavations in Chaldaea and Assyria will ever provide us with such remains
as those groups of statues which fill our museums, in which the effigy of a
single god is repeated hundreds of times with every variation of type,
pose, and attribute given to it