had no mean knowledge of
mechanics. A crystal lens, turned on the lathe, was discovered by Layard at
Nimrud along with glass vases bearing the name of Sargon; this will explain
the excessive minuteness of some of the writing on the Assyrian tablets,
and a lens may also have been used in the observation of the heavens.

_Art and Architecture_.--The culture of Assyria, and still more of
Babylonia, was essentially literary; we miss in it the artistic spirit of
Egypt or Greece. In Babylonia the abundance of clay and want of stone led
to the employment of brick; the Babylonian temples are massive but
shapeless structures of crude brick, supported by buttresses, the rain
being carried off by drains, one of which at Ur was of lead. The use of
brick led to the early development of the pilaster and column, as well as
of frescoes and enamelled tiles. The walls were brilliantly coloured, and
sometimes plated with bronze or gold as well as with tiles. Painted
terra-cotta cones were also embedded in the plaster. Assyria in this, as in
other matters, the servile pupil of Babylonia, built its palaces and
temples of brick, though stone was the natural building material of the
country, even preserving the brick platform, so necessary in the marshy
soil of Babylonia, but little needed in the north. As time went on,
however, the later Assyrian architect began to shake himself free from
Babylonian influences and to employ stone as well as brick. The walls of
the Assyrian palaces were lined with sculptured and coloured slabs of
stone, instead of being painted as in Chaldaea. We can. trace three periods
in the art of these bas-reliefs; it is vigorous but simple under
Assur-nazir-pal III., careful and realistic under Sargon, refined but
wanting in boldness under Assur-bani-pal. In Babylonia, in place of the
bas-relief we have the figure in the round, the earliest examples being the
statues from Tello which are realistic but somewhat clumsy. The want of
stone in Babylonia made every pebble precious and led to a high perfection
in the art of gem-cutting. Nothing can be better than two seal-cylinders
that have come down to us from the age of Sargon of Akkad. No remarkable
specimens of the metallurgic art of an early period have been found, apart
perhaps from the silver vase of Entemena, but at a later epoch great
excellence was attained in the manufacture of such jewellery as ear-rings
and bracelets of gold. Copper, too, was worked with skill; ind