REVIEWS HISTORY OF ANCIENT POTTERY. 255 



tan character of Eoinan London as the seat of government of tlie 

 propraetor of Britain. We presume it is due to a typographical slip 

 that we receive from Mr. Birch a novel reading whereby the Eoman 

 propraetor becomes the proprietor of London, in the following para- 

 graph : 



" Some fragments of tiles or bricks, evidently the semilaferes, or half-bricks of 

 Vitruvius, dug up on the site of the Post Office in London, were impressed with 

 the letters p. p. br. lon., denoting the residence of the Roman proprietor in Britain. (! ) . 

 Still more interesting are the inscriptions stamped on the tiles relating to the 

 legions and othor military divisions stationed throughout the provinces of the vast 

 empire. They contain the number and titles of the legions, and mark the limits 

 of the Roman conquests. The route of the XXII. Legion has been traced through 

 Germany ; and in our own country, an examination and comparison of these tiles, 

 shows the distribution of the military force, and the change of the quarters of the 

 different legions which held Britain in subjection." 



From the simple brick we pass, by natural gradation, to the more 

 elaborate clay cyKnders of Mesopotamia and Assyria, — not stamped 

 lite the tile, with mere epithets or titles, but executed on purpose to 

 pieserve the national chronicles entrusted to their durable custody ; 

 ard thus we find ourselves transferred at once from the mere con- 

 sideration of the potter's ingenious and tasteful art, to the investiga- 

 tioi of some of the most ancient of human records, coeval with 

 portons of the Old Testament scriptures, and furnishing the mate- 

 rials wherewith a Eawlinson and a "Wilkinson now seek to illustrate 

 and sipplement the narrative of " the Father of History." 



It night scarcely be anticipated that volumes devoted exclusively 

 to the elucidation of the History of Fottery, would be found to bear 

 any reation to the History of Herodotus — yet so it is ; nor is it by 

 any fai-fetched process that the connexion is established. 



" The materials used for writing on," says Mr. Birch, " have varied in different 

 ajes and nations. Among the Egyptians, slices of limestone, leather, linen, and 

 pipyrus, especially the last, were universally employed. The G-reeks used bronze 

 a;d stone for public monuments, wax for memorandums, and papyrus for the 

 odinary transactions of life. The kings of Pergamus adopted parchment ; and 

 tie other nations of the ancient world chiefly depended on a supply of the paper 

 o Egypt. But the Assyrians and Babylonians employed for their public archives, 

 t'eir astronomical computations, their religious dedications, their historical an- 

 nls, and even for title-deeds and bills of exchange, tablets, cylinders, and hexa- 

 gnal prisms of terra-cotta. Two of these cylinders, still extant, contain the 

 btory of the campaign of Sennacherib against the kingdom of Judah ; and two 

 chers, exhumed from the Birs Nimrud, give a detailed account of the dedication 

 the great temple by Nebuchadnezzar to the seven planets. To this indestruc- 

 t)le material, and to the happy idea of employing it in this manner, the present 



