hur-bani-pal's
(about B.C. 660), where the lines are six to the inch, or as near
together as the type of the _Edinburgh Review_. If the complexity of the
Assyrian characters be taken into account, and if it be remembered that
the whole inscription was in every ease impressed by the hand, this
minuteness must be allowed to be very surprising. It is not favorable to
legibility; and the patience of cuneiform scholars has been severely
tried by a mode of writing which sacrifices everything to the desire of
crowding the greatest possible quantity of words into the smallest
possible space. In one respect, however, facility of reading is
consulted, for the inscriptions on the cylinders are not carried on in
continuous lines round all the sides, but are written in columns, each
column occupying a side. The lines are thus tolerably short; and the
whole of a sentence is brought before the eye at once.

[Illustration: PLATE 39]

Besides slabs and cylinders, the written memorials of Assyria comprise
inscribed bulls and lions, stone obelisks, clay tablets, bricks, and
engraved seals. Tin seals generally resemble those of the Chaldaeans,
which have been already described: but are somewhat more elaborate, and
more varied in their character. [PLATE XXXIX., Fig. 2.] They do not very
often exhibit any writing; but occasionally they are inscribed with the
name of their owner, while in a few instances they show an inscription
of some length. The clay tablets are both numerous and curious. They are
of various sizes, ranging from nine inches long by six and a half wide,
to an inch and a half long by an inch wide, or even less. [PLATE XL.,
Fig. 2.] Sometimes they are entirely covered with writing; while
sometimes they exhibit on a portion of their surface the impressions of
seals, mythological emblems, and the like. Some thousands of them have
been recovered; and they are found to be of the most varied character.
Many are historical, still more mythological; some are linguistic, some
geographic, some again astronomical. It is anticipated that, when they
are deciphered, we shall obtain a complete eneyclopaedia of Assyrian
science, and shall be able by this means to trace a large portion of the
knowledge of the Greeks to an Oriental source. Here is a mine still very
little worked, from which patient and cautious investigators may one day
extract the most valuable literary treasures. The stone obelisks are but
few, and are mostly in a fragmenta