o great.

History contains no mention of a people more preoccupied with the affairs
of the grave than the Egyptians. Doubtless the Chaldaeans had to give a
certain amount of their attention to the same problem, and we know that it
was resolved in the same sense and by the same sequence of beliefs both on
the banks of the Euphrates and on those of the Nile; but other questions
were more attractive to the peoples of Mesopotamia. Their curiosity was
roused chiefly by the phenomena of the skies, by the complicated
phantasmagoria offered nightly in the depths above. These they set
themselves to observe with patience and exactitude, and it is to the habits
thus formed that they, in part at least, owed their scientific superiority
and the honour they derive from the incontestable fact that they have
furnished to modern civilization elements more useful and more readily
assimilated than any other great people of the remote past.

And yet the Semites of Chaldaea were not without myths relating to the abode
of departed souls of which some features may be grasped. In order to get a
better comprehension of them, we must not only look to the discovery and
translation of new texts, but to the intelligent study of figured
representations. At least this seems to be the lesson of a curious monument
recently discovered.[439]

People may differ as to the significance of this or that detail, but no one
will deny that the plaque is religious and funerary in its general
character, and that, whatever may have been its purpose, it is as a whole
connected with the memory and worship of the dead, and therefore that this
is the place for such remarks as we have to make upon it.

The object in question is a bronze plaque, sculptured on both faces, which
Peretie acquired at Hama in Northern Syria. The dealer from whom he bought
it declared that it came into his hands from a peasant of Palmyra. As to
where the latter found it we know nothing. In any case the oasis of Tadmor
was a dependency of Mesopotamia as long as the power of the Chaldaean and
Assyrian monarchies lasted, and the characteristic features of the work in
question are entirely Assyrian. In that respect neither Peretie nor
Clermont-Ganneau made any mistake.

This plaque is a tall rectangle in shape. At its two upper angles there are
salient rings or staples, apparently meant to receive a cord or chain. At
the bottom it has a slight ledge, suggesting that it stood upon its base
and