SCIENCE OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 



ures with the poorest of all materials, clay ; discovered 

 the art of polishing, boring, and engraving gems; re- 

 produced with truthfulness the outlines of human and 

 animal forms; attained to high perfection in textile 

 fabrics; studied with success the motions of the heav- 

 enly bodies; conceived of grammar as a science; elab- 

 orated a system of law; saw the value of an exact 

 chronology in almost every branch of science made a 

 beginning, thus rendering it comparatively easy for 

 other nations to proceed with the superstructure. . . . 

 It was from the East, not from Egypt, that Greece de- 

 rived her architecture, her sculpture, her science, her 

 philosophy, her mathematical knowledge in a word, 

 her intellectual life. And Babylon was the source to 

 which the entire stream of Eastern civilization may 

 be traced. It is scarcely too much to say that, but 

 for Babylon, real civilization might not yet have 

 dawned upon the earth." 



Considering that a period of almost two thousand 

 years separates the times of writing of these two esti- 

 mates, the estimates themselves are singularly in uni- 

 son. They show that the greatest of Oriental nations 

 has not suffered in reputation at the hands of posterity. 

 It is indeed almost impossible to contemplate the monu- 

 ments of Babylonian and Assyrian civilization that are 

 now preserved in the European and American museums 

 without becoming enthusiastic. That certainly was 

 a wonderful civilization which has left us the tablets on 

 which are inscribed the laws of a Khamurabi on the 

 one hand, and the art treasures of the palace of an 

 Asshurbanipal on the other. Yet a candid considera- 



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