8 Minnesota Academy of Science 



agency of his brother who represents him here in New York 

 when he is hack home, I succeeded in getting a great por- 

 tion of all the stoneware vases that were taken out of the 

 old tomb. And from the same parties and others, I secured 

 many beautiful pieces from the ruins of the old palace of 

 this same ruler who built the great tomb. Some of them 

 are marvelously well preserved from the fortunate protection 

 which they received in the ruins. (Pieces were shown). 



The examples from the old tomb, which is said to have 

 been one of the finest and largest in the world, were so well 

 protected from the elements that the pieces were nearly all 

 preserved intact, and damaged or injured only by the con- 

 tents which were placed in them to provide food, water and 

 wine for the spirits of those buried within the tomb and 

 such others as might be admitted or called in with those 

 whose bodies rested there. Some of them are colored quite 

 dark brown, presumed to have been caused by the oil that 

 was placed in them. Others for different kinds of food 

 were stained to different degrees ; in fact, some very fine 

 pieces were so much discolored and injured from the inside 

 that they were practically ruined. The glaze was very 

 thick on the outside but the stain came through the cracks 

 and more porous part qi the inside which stained the under- 

 side of the glaze, and the glaze being translucent, showed 

 the amount of discoloring which in some cases was not 'suf- 

 ficient to damage but gave a deeper, richer color; but in other 

 cases injured or almost ruined them for examples of fine 

 coloring. The form and color of these will be found peculiar 

 to those people and very different from the art of the sur- 

 rounding nations or of the Chinese, Japanese, or Koreans. 

 As Babylonia did not contain a great number of tombs, 

 the potter's art of this country of early times has in large 

 part disappeared, even up to a point of time much later than 

 the building of this tomb and palace, as most of the pottery 

 found now in the museums came from the 13th, 14th, 15th 

 and later centuries. . 



That which comes next and would take precedence in 

 time really is that of the old Egyptian empire. Whether 

 the potter's art in development with this people antedated 

 the old Babylonians, is not certain. There is certainly 

 greater opportunity for gaining a knowledge of the early art 

 in Egypt than in Babylonia, and especially of that which 

 pertained to religion or burial services. 



