EARLY CIVILIZATIONS 9 



vines; millet and sesame, however, grew luxuriantly. Date-palms 

 abounded, and furnished a large part of the food of the inhabitants. 



The people of Assyria and Chaldea were as skilled in manual 

 handicrafts as in the cultivation of the earth. They wove cloths of 

 brilliant colors; they also ornamented their garments with a pro- 

 fusion of embroideries, and wore magnificent tiaras. Babylonian 

 embroidery was celebrated even in the days of the Roman empire. 

 The manufacture of carpets, one of the chief luxuries in the East, 

 attained wonderful perfection at Babylon, as well as the manufacture 

 of personal attire. Their furniture, by its richness and shape, dif- 

 fered completely from anything we find in present use amongst Ori- 

 entals ; the Assyrians used arm-chairs or sat on stools, and dined as 

 we do from tables. The tables and chairs were handsomely decorated 

 and in good taste, and it is curious to note that the same designs for 

 ornamentation were in use then as we have now lions' claws, 

 animals' heads, etc. ; and even at the present time the ancient models 

 might be studied with profit and copied with advantage. They were 

 skilful in working hard as well as soft materials. The cylinders of 

 jasper and crystal and the bas-reliefs of Khorsabad sculptured in 

 gypsum or in basalt equally denote their proficiency. They were 

 acquainted with glass and with various kinds of enamel, and they 

 knew how to bake clay for the manufacture of bricks or of porcelain 

 vases. Moreover, the art of varnishing earthenware and of cover- 

 ing it with paintings by means of coloured enamel was well known at 

 Nineveh. 



The cuneiform writing so called because it is formed by pres- 

 sure of the stylus on the soft surface of the clay tablets, producing 

 a mark like a wedge or arrow-head is a development of hieratic, 

 itself an improvement on the primitive hieroglyphic. The hieratic 

 characters had been scratched with the point of the stylus on the 

 clay that served the Mesopotamian peoples for paper. The use of 

 the stylus in cuneiform, gave a single element, by the employment of 

 which in various combinations, all the letters of the alphabet were 

 formed. When the Persians conquered Mesopotamia they published 

 their decrees, etc., in the three chief dialects of their subjects the 

 Persian, Median, and Assyrian. Hence the trilingual inscriptions 

 which have supplied the key to cuneiform interpretation. The dis- 

 covery of the interpretation of the famous inscription at Behistun, 

 on the Persian frontier, in three languages, Persian, Median, and 



