e as yet been found in Assyria; perhaps because no search or an
inefficient search has been made for them.

We have dwelt at some length upon the orientation of buildings, upon the
importance attached to their angle stones, and upon the precautions taken
to place an edifice under the protection of the gods, and to preserve the
name of its founder from oblivion. We can point to no stronger evidence
than that furnished by these proceedings as a whole, of the high
civilization to which the people of Chaldaea and Assyria had attained at a
very early date. The temple and palace did not spread themselves out upon
the soil at the word of a capricious and individual fancy; a constant will
governed the arrangement of its plan, solemn rites inaugurated its
construction and recommended its welfare to the gods. The texts tell us
nothing about the architects, who raised so many noble monuments; we know
neither their names, nor their social condition, but we can divine from
their works that they had strongly established traditions, and that they
could look back upon a solid and careful education for their profession. As
to whether they formed one of those close corporations in which the secrets
of a trade are handed down from generation to generation of their members,
or whether they belonged to the sacerdotal caste, we do not know. We are
inclined to the latter supposition in some degree by the profoundly
religious character of the ceremonies that accompanied the inception of a
building, and by the accounts left by the ancients of those priests whom
they called _the Chaldaeans_. It was to these Chaldaeans that Mesopotamian
society owed all it knew of scientific methods and modes of thought, and
it is, perhaps, fair to suppose that they turned to the practice of the
arts those intellects which they had cultivated above their fellows.
Architecture especially requires something more than manual skill,
practice, and natural genius. When it is carried so far as it was in
Chaldaea it demands a certain amount of science, and the priests who by
right of their intellectual superiority held such an important place in the
state, may well have contrived to gain a monopoly as architects to the
king. In their persons alone would the scientific knowledge required for
such work be combined with the power to accomplish those sacred rites which
gave to the commencement of a new building the character of a contract
between man and his deity.

NOTES: