INTRODUCTION: ORIGIN, USE, AND MATERIALS. 7 
Chaldéennes, p. 265). It is of a dolomitic marble. Yet it also seems to have come 
from Elam (Thureau-Dangin, Rev. Ass., v, p. 74, note 9; also Heuzey, “La 
Masse d’Armes de Goudéa,”’ Rev. Arch., 1891). Calcareous and dolomitic marble 
would not be distinguished and are found in many places. 
Aragonite is another more crystalline stone resembling marble, being also 
calcareous. It is slightly translucent, like alabaster, with which it might be con- 
founded but for its superior hardness. The cylinders of this material are often 
like those in marble, large and quite cylindrical; but they are also often rather 
small in diameter and of a length three times their diameter or more, while the 
large cylinders have usually a diameter somewhat more than half their length. 
These cylinders are often, or usually, of a great antiquity, judging from the style 
of the engraving, and they affect the style of two, sometimes three, registers. The 
large majority of cylinders of this type are white, either marble or aragonite. They 
probably belong to a special district where was produced a type different from that 
prevalent in most of Babylonia. 
Lapts-lazult: This was a favorite and choice material in use from a very early 
and indeed the earliest period, and was probably obtained from the Persian mines. 
We have it in very large cylinders of the late Persian period and in those of the 
smallest dimensions, apparently too small for anything but ear-rings. It was often 
spangled with yellow mica, looking like flakes of gold, and often with white patches 
of calcite. The Babylonian name was uknu. 
Apparently the first hard stone to be used, of the hardness of quartz, was 
jasper. ‘The famous seal of Sargon the Elder is of brown jasper, if we may trust 
the designation of the material in de Clercq’s “Catalogue,” but the color is rare, 
if not unique. The difficulty of cutting it made it, in the early period, a rare 
material. 
A red jasper occasionally appears in the earlier seals. One such is that given 
by the distinguished orientalist de Saulcy to Ménant, the first careful student of 
this glyptic art, and it 1s now in my possession (fig. 167). 
A checkered red and white jasper, perhaps a kind of breccta, appears at an 
early period, and in the Kassite period a yellow and white breccia. 
Quartz crystal: We do not find this material in the very earliest art, but it 
appears in the time of Gudea and was quite common and valued in the Middle 
Babylonian period and occasionally down to the Persian period. It is a very poor 
stone for cutting with such tools as the Babylonians had, and not often does it 
take a clean engraving, owing to the brittle conchoidal fracture. It would seem as 
if the earlier artists must have used a gentle blow to engrave their harder stones. 
The surface is often well polished, but the engraving is rough. 
Chalcedony: ‘This material was seldom employed, if at all, in the early period 
for cylinders; but when we reach the later Babylonian empire it was the most 
common and cheapest of all materials. Although of the hardness of quartz crystal, 
its structure is not crystalline but colloidal, and it has a toughness that responds 
admirably to the tool. Accordingly the finest work can be done on it, and equally 
the rudest with a coarse wheel. 
Sapphirine, a variety of chalcedony, is a clear light-blue stone, very attrac- 
tive and of various depths of color. In the Persian times it was used for much fine 
work, either in cylinders or in cone seals, as also later for scaraboids. 
