178 REPORTS OP INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



late as 500 or 400 b. c. By nationality they are classified as Babylonian, 

 Assyrian, Persian, Hittite, Syrian, and Phenician. They are also classified 

 by subjects, the scenes generally representing the worship of the various 

 deities, or sometimes scenes of hunting or war. In the concluding chapters 

 the various ways in which the gods and their emblems are figured have been 

 gathered to the number of about 300 for the easy reference of scholars. 



The preparation of this work has occupied the larger part of Dr. Ward's 

 study for five years, and constant attention has been given to the subject 

 since his return from a visit to Babylonia in 1884-85 as director of the Wolfe 

 Expedition. During this period he made the collection of cylinders belong- 

 ing to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, which is excelled only by 

 those of the British Museum and the Louvre. His object in the work just 

 completed has been to make accessible all knowledge available to the present 

 date in this department of archeology, of which the late M. J. Menant was 

 the pioneer in his work "Les Pierres Gravees," published nearly 30 years ago. 



