PRIMITIVE BOOKS 



tory is gaining a more direct and specific knowledge 

 of oriental history than we shall, perhaps, ever be able 

 to obtain regarding much more recent classical periods. 

 For, as already pointed out, the Greeks and Romans 

 made their records chiefly on perishable materials. 



In addition to the flat tablet, the Babylonians and 

 Assyrians wrote some of their books on large prisms 

 and cylinders. Some of these cylinders are as much 

 as two feet in length, and eight to ten inches in diameter. 

 Being made of the same material as the tablets, they are 

 necessarily heavy and cumbersome, yet they were in 

 some ways more convenient for reading, since they were 

 perforated longitudinally, and placed on a spindle, 

 so as to revolve. In some cases the writing runs from 

 end to end of the cylinder, which is then suspended 

 horizontally. In other cases the cylinder is upright, 

 the columns running from top to bottom. In the latter 

 case, the book is usually not a true cylinder, but a 

 prism of six, eight, or ten sides, each side holding a 

 separate column of writing like the page of a book. 

 These prisms and cylinders were commonly selected 

 by the kings to contain records of their deeds. Thus 

 the British Museum contains prisms on which are 

 recorded achievements of such famous conquerors as 

 Sargon, Sennecharib and the Elamite warrior, Cyrus. 

 The last-named cylinder has peculiar interest because it 

 describes the taking of Babylon. There is also a 

 cylinder of King Nabonidus, the ruler of Babylon, 

 which contains another account of the same trans- 

 action. It appears that Nabonidus capitulated to Cyrus, 

 and that there was no such scene of carnage as the 



