Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/370

 348 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALD.KA AND ASSYRIA. Chaldaeans. who furnished as it were the bread upon which their minds were nourished. It is the Chaldee intellect that we study when we question the texts from the library of Assurbanipal. Other 'passages in these terra-cotta books help to complete and illustrate those from which we have, as it were, gained a first glimpse of the Assyrian Under- world ; but we shall never, in all probability, know it as we already know that of the Egyptians. This is partly, perhaps, because it was less complex, and partly because the fascination it exercised over the mind of man was not so great. History contains no mention of a people more preoccupied with the affairs of the grave than the Egyptians. Doubtless the Chaldaeans had to give a certain amount of their attention to the o same problem, and we know that it was resolved in the same sense and by the same sequence of beliefs both on the banks of the Euphrates and on those of the Nile; but other questions were more attractive to the peoples of Mesopotamia. Their curiosity was roused chiefly by the phenomena of the skies, by the complicated phantasmagoria offered nightly in the depths above. These they set themselves to observe with patience and exactitude, and it is to the habits thus formed that they, in part at least, owed their scientific superiority and the honour they derive from the incontestable fact that they have furnished to modern civilization elements more useful and more readily assimilated than any other great people of the remote past. And yet the Semites of Chaldaea were not without myths relating to the abode of departed souls of which some features may be grasped. In order to get a better comprehension of them, we must not only look to the discovery and translation of new texts, but to the intelligent study of figured representations. At least this seems to be the lesson of a curious monument recently discovered. 1 1 See M. CLKRMOXT-GAXNEAU'S LEnfcr assyrieii, first part (Rente archcologigue vol. xxxviii. and plate xxv.). The second article, which should have contained the explanation of this little monument, has never appeared, to the great regret of all who appreciate the knowledge and penetration of that learned writer at their proper value. The first article is nothing but a detailed description, which we abridge. Certain doubts were expressed at the time of its publication as to the authenticity of this object ; nothing, however, has happened to confirm them. Both in com- position and execution it is excellent. M. Pe'retie', moreover, was not one to be easily deceived. M. Clermont-Ganneau described and illustrated this bronze plate