SUMERIAN TECHNOLOGY—BOBULA 647 
reed stylus and then fired, varying from important historical texts 
or poems to all kinds of everyday accounts, give us more insight 
into the everyday life of Sumer than that which we get from 
Greek or Latin documents on peoples who lived much later. 
For many centuries, the Phoenicians were 
credited with the invention of glassmaking; a 
story was current about their fortunate chanc- 
ing upon this important invention. The mod- 
ern excavations exploded the fable and made 
Fieure iad dicefrom it, clear that both the Egyptians and the Meso- 
potamians made glass long before the advent 
of the otherwise highly gifted Phoenicians. In early Mesopotamia 
glass occurs mostly as material for beads of glass paste, but in Nippur 
a small glass bottle also was found. 
bi 
our “=-- 
SEH LO! ONG 
Ficure 17.—Clay tablet with cuneiform script. (de Genouillac, pl.[15.) 
BITUMEN TECHNOLOGY—MOSAIC WORK 
Bitumen is a mineral pitch, a naturally occurring solid or semi- 
solid substance, related in chemical composition to crude petroleum. 
Bitumen and petroleum usually occur in the same vicinity. Natural 
bitumen seeps out of the earth in many places in Iraq, and it is near 
those ancient fountains that man first learned to use this versatile 
material. 
536608—60——_46 
