vi PREFACE. 



therefore as long as they are intelligible and true, 

 the illustrations serve their purpose. 



When I say there seems no meaning in a story — 

 that is, there is no story to be told, I do not mean 

 that none is possible ; but that, in my opinion, some 

 composite pictures seem to have had a specific 

 meaning, while others seem to have no particular 

 meaning, but were intended for simple decorations. 

 I am aware that in many such cases, something has 

 to be put down for the bias with which the inter- 

 preter approaches his subject. 



Professor Sayce, in his inaugural address, at the 

 Ninth International Congress of Orientalists, stated, 

 if I remember rightly, that the only way to get at 

 the bottom of Assyriology is to copy, copy, copy, 

 and to translate, translate, translate. 



True, but not impossibly, from a psychological 

 point of view, that might also mean that your 

 brain cells get so charged with copy, copy, and 

 translate, translate, that you can see little or nothing 

 else ; while a fresh mind which has not been copy- 

 ing and translating, coming to the subject, may see 

 things which have escaped the copyist and the 

 translator. 



Of course the work of the copyist and translator 

 may have formed the basis from which the fresh 

 mind draws a great deal of its inspiration ; but 

 not a/i, for there are the sculptures which would 

 seem to need little translation, if bias is left aside. 



