xxiv INTRODUCTION. 



intimate relation with each other, at least fourteen 

 centuries B.C., and their correspondence was carried 

 on in cuneiform writing.* So we need not wonder 

 that the symbols and ornamentations of these two 

 civilizations became intermixed. 



Word symbols in passing from nation to nation 

 o-et modified — honor into ' onore,' 'honneur,' and 

 'honour.' Other words have undergone vasdy 

 oreater modifications, so as to become unrecogni- 

 zable. So with these picture symbols. In passing 

 from brain to brain of artists ; from nation to 

 nation ; they have dropped here a feature, and 

 there have taken up another. Eventually they 

 have become almost unrecognizable, and apparendy 

 a nezv thing with a neiv story attached to it. 



Let us take an instance. The highly finished 

 and elaborately decorative sacred tree of the Monu- 

 ments, intended to occupy a large space on a wall, 

 could not be reproduced on a cylinder, except as 

 a sort of micro-photograph. It had to be degraded 

 not only for want of space, but because of the 

 hardness of the agate, or crystal, or other hard 

 stone of which cylinders were made, and also 

 because of the inferiority of their tools to work 

 such hard material. This degradation is exactly 

 comparable to the degradation of a luxuriant tree, 



•* 'The Petrie Papyri' by Prof. Mahaffy. New Review, Nov., 

 1892. Mr. St. Chad Boscawen thinks that the intercourse of the 

 nations can be traced to 28 centuiies H.C., and there is evidence 

 that Assyrians and Egyptians met at the quarries of Sinai 6000 

 years ago 1 



