256 



BABYLONIAN ARCHAEOLOGY 



The Mezzograph Screen is another attempt to substitute something more interesting 

 and less mechanical than the ordinary cross line screen. It is the invention of Mr. 

 Wheeler, and the feature of it is that although the grain is etched into the glass no 

 pigment is used to fill up the spaces; the screen presents the appearance of finely frosted 

 glass and the breaking up of the image is effected by diffraction caused by each minute 

 grain in the chemically etched screen forming microscopic lenses. It is now used with 

 good results for colour and also for general black and white reproduction. 



Posters. The application of half tone work to posters is of recent development. 

 The production of half tone blocks for colour or black and white of the size required by 

 poster work is a costly matter if they are made from large negatives, and this is only done 

 by important firms. The common method is to enlarge up from small half tone negatives 

 or transparencies, and it is found that in the large poster the coarseness of the grain result- 

 ing from the enlargement is not a drawback. When combined with colours applied by 

 lithography or letter press the enlarged half tone key yields admirable results, which 

 are cheap to produce and very effective. These colours are usually drawn on the stone 

 or plate in chalk when they are to be printed by lithography, and the coarseness of the 

 chalk work entirely disguises any rankness that might be apparent in the enlarged key 

 block. (EowiN BALE.) 



SECTION IV. ARCHAEOLOGY AND EXCAVATION 

 BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 1 



The three years 1910-1912 have been prolific in discoveries bearing on the history 

 and chronology of Babylonia and Assyria, particularly during the earlier periods. 

 Three dynasties of kings, two in Northern Babylonia, and one in the south, have been 

 recovered, not a single name of which had previously been known;, a large gap has been 

 filled in our knowledge of events in the north during the first great period of Semitic 

 supremacy; following on this period, we now for the first time have information of an 

 invasion, and a domination of the whole country, by a foreign Semitic power long settled 

 on its eastern border; and finally a remarkable inscription, discovered and published in 

 1912, records how this domination was brought to an end, and the way prepared for 

 the later Sumerian supremacy which preceded the rise of Babylon to power. Such an 

 accession of new material has naturally brought with it a series of fresh problems 

 which still await a final solution. These will be briefly stated and a provisional scheme 

 outlined by means of which the new data may be reconciled with the old. The dis- 

 cussion will best be followed by reference to the accompanying Reconstructed Chart of the 

 Early Babylonian Dynasties. It should be noted that in the later periods the title 

 " patesi," as opposed to that of " king," implied a condition of dependence, but in the 

 earlier periods this distinction was not so marked. 



Reconstructed Chart of the Early Babylonian Dynasties. 



N. B. The names of kings recovered in the years 1910-12 are printed in italics, those 

 previously known in ordinary type. p. =patesi; k. = king; a comma after a ruler's name 



indicates that he was succeeded by his son. A dotted line ( ) joins the names of kings 



who are proved to have been contemporaries; the position of names within parentheses is 

 conjectural. The figures which follow the name of a king represent the number of years he 

 ruled. 



1 See E. B. iii, 99 et seq 



