Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/284

 2^2 A History of Art in Chald.ka and Assyria. In the first instance this, engraving was nothing more than an ornament. But one day it occurred to some possessor of such a stone to take an impression upon plastic clay. Those who saw the image thus obtained were struck by its precision, and were soon led to make use of it for authenticating acts and transactions of every kind. The presence of such an impression upon a document would perpetuate the memory of the man who put it there, and would be equivalent to what we call a sign manual. But even when it developed into a seal the engraved stone did not lose its talismanic value. In order to preserve its quasi-magic character, nothing more was required than the presence of a god among the figures engraved upon it. By carrying upon his person the image of the deity in which he placed his confidence, the Chaldaean covered himself with his protection as with a shield, and something of the same virtue passed into the impressions which the seal could produce in such infinite numbers. Fig. 129. — River pebble which has formed Fig. 130. — River pebble engraved ; part of a necklace. from De Gobineau. No subject occurs more often on the cylinders than the celes- tial gods triumphing over demons. Such an image when im- pressed upon the soft clay would preserve sealed-up treasures from attempts inspired by the infernal powers, and would interest the gods in the maintenance of any contract to which it might be appended. 1 To all this we must add that superstitions, of which traces subsist in the East to this day, ascribed magic power to certain stones. Hematite, for instance, as its name suggests, was sup- posed to stop bleeding, while even the Greeks believed that a carnelian gave courage to any one who wore it on his finger. When engraving on hard stone was first attempted, it was, then, less for the love of art than for the profit to be won by the magic virtues and mysterious affinities, both of the material itself, and of the image cut in its substance. Then, with the increase of 1 M. Fr. Lenormant explains this talismanic value of the cylinders very clearly in his Étude sur la Signification des Sujets de quelques Cylindres babyloniens et assyriens (Gazette archéologique, 1879, P- 2 49)-