Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/340

 3i 8 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALD^EA AND ASSYRIA. little tubs are called cylinders a not very happy title. As some of them are about three feet high (Fig. 150) they can take commem- orative inscriptions of vastly greater length than those cut upon small hard-stone cylinders. Some of these inscriptions have as many as a hundred lines very finely engraved. Many precious specimens dating from the times of Nebuchadnezzar and his suc- cessors have been found in the ruins of Babylon. 1 Thus from the beginning to the end of Chaldaean civilization the custom was preserved of consecrating a building by hiding in its FIG. 148. Bronze statuette. 10 inches high. Louvre. substance objects to which a divine type and an engraved text gave both a talismanic and a commemorative, value. As might be supposed the same usage was followed in Assyria. commemorative cylinder ' a command which, to the wonder and bewilderment of the people, was immediately obeyed ; and a cylinder covered with inscriptions was drawn out from its hiding-place of twenty-four centuries, as fresh as when deposited there by the hands, probably, of Nebuchadnezzar himself! The Colonel added in a note that the fame of his magical power had flown to Bagdad, and that he was besieged with applications for the loan of his wonderful instrument to be used in the discovery of hidden treasures ! " 1 Among these we may mention the Philips cylinder, from which, in speaking of the great works carried out by Nebuchadnezzar, LE NORM ANT gives long extracts in his Manuel cPHisloire ancienm, vol. ii. pp. 233 and 235.