CHAPTER IV. 
ARCHAIC CYLINDERS: THE EAGLE OF LAGASH. 
On what appears to be the most archaic class of cylinders inscriptions are 
seldom found. We must judge of their age chiefly by their style of art, their ma- 
terial, and their shape, although occasionally an inscription of a very old type 
appears. We are fortunate in possessing bas-reliefs on stone, with figures and 
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54 
names of kings, from Nippur (Niffer) and Shirpurla (Tello), which give us the 
style of the primitive art. Examples are given in figs. 53, 54, 55. 
The materials of cylinders are usually white marble, aragonite, or shell, occa- 
sionally serpentine or lapis-lazuli. Lapis-lazuli appears at the earliest period. The 
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L771 DITTIT TL AL 
LUMEN SSR ROARACANN 
56 

use of aragonite, a crystalline semi-translucent variety of calcite, of a slightly 
greenish tinge, is peculiar to these cylinders. In shape they are usually purely 
cylindrical (not concave-face); and in size they are generally rather large, but some- 
times slender and of a length more than twice the diameter. Very frequently they 
are in two registers separated by one or more lines. 
30 
