THE METALS OF ANCIENT CHALDEA. 221 



them, designated by names. Only four of them are in the Louvre 

 Museum, the other three are lost. The four which are known bear 

 long and detailed inscriptions, of which M. Oppert has published trans- 

 lations of three in M. Place's work on " Nineveh and Assyria." The 

 sense is nearly the same in all the three, and relates to the construction 

 of the palace. According to this translation, the tablets were of gold? 

 silver, copper, and two other substances, the names of which have been 

 identified with lead and tin — the last rather doubtfully, according to 

 M. Oppert ; and, lastly, of two additional substances, bearing the de- 

 terminatives of stones employed as materials of construction, which 

 are considered to be marble and alabaster. Unfortunately, the several 

 tablets do not contain separately the name of the material of which 

 they are made. I have examined the four tablets in the Louvre. 

 They are rectangular, and a few millimetres in thickness. The golden 

 plate is the thinnest, and may be easily recognized, although it has 

 lost its brightness. It weighs about 167 grammes. It was shaped by 

 hammering. The metal is not alloyed in any notable proportion. The 

 silver plate is quite or nearly as pure. It is slightly blackened on the 

 surface by the formation of a sulphuret, as usually happens to silver 

 which has been exposed for a long time to atmospheric agencies. It 

 weighs about 435 grammes. 



I give these weights as matters of fact, without prepossession on 

 the question of whether they corresponded with the relative values of 

 the metals at the time of the foundation of the palace. 



The plate supposed to be of copper is deeply altered and partly ex- 

 foliated by oxidation. It weighs, in its present condition, 952 grammes, 

 which shows that its dimensions were considerably greater than those 

 of the other two plates. Its color is a dark red, which is determined 

 for the most part by the presence of the protoxide of copper. It is 

 not pure copper, but bronze ; a specimen, filed off from the edge, con- 

 tained, by analysis, tin, 10"04 ; copper, 85*25 ; oxygen, etc., 4*71. 



Neither lead nor zinc, nor any other metal, is found in noticeable 

 quantity. The proportion of tin corresponds with that in golden-yel- 

 low bronze, but the presence of protoxide of copper has changed the 

 color. This composition is also found in a large number of ancient 

 bronzes ; of which I will mention only an Egyptian mirror of the seven- 

 teenth or eighteenth century b. c, which I once analyzed for M. Mar- 

 riette. It contained 9 parts of tin and 91 of copper. 



The fourth tablet is the most interesting of all, on account of its 

 composition. It weighs about 185 grammes. It is composed of a 

 bright white substance, hard and opaque, carefully cut and polished. 

 It had till now been thought to be of a metallic oxide, and had first 

 been designated as the antimony tablet ; others said tin, because it 

 was thought to have been made of a metal which time had gradually 

 oxidized. But neither antimony nor tin possesses the property of under- 

 going a change of this kind, especially when inclosed in a stone chest. 



