cut is very homogeneous and
much more dense than it would have been had it not been kneaded and pressed
in the moulds; and, secondly, that the horizontal courses are here and
there to be distinguished from each other by their differences of
tint.[132]

The art of burning brick dates, in the case of Chaldaea, from a very remote
epoch. No tradition subsisted of a period when it was not practised. After
the deluge, when men wished to build a city and a tower which should reach
to heaven, "they said to one another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn
them throughly; and they had brick for stone, and slime had they for
mortar."[133]

The Babylonian bricks were, as a rule, one Chaldaean foot (rather more than
an English foot) square. Their colour varies in different buildings from a
dark red to a light yellow,[134] but they are always well burnt and of
excellent quality. Nearly all of them bear an inscription to the following
effect: "Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, restorer of the pyramid and the
tower, eldest son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, I." In laying the brick
the face bearing this inscription was turned downwards. The characters were
impressed on the soft clay with a stamp. More than forty varieties have
already been discovered, implying the existence of as many stamps (see Fig.
32). In Assyria these inscriptions were sometimes stamped, sometimes
engraved with the hand (Fig. 33).

Most of the bricks are regular in shape, with parallel and rectangular
faces, but a few wedge-shaped ones have been found, both in Chaldaea and
Assyria. These must have been made for building arches or vaults. Their
obliquity varies according to their destined places in the curve.[135]

The body of the enamelled bricks differs from that of the ordinary kind. It
is softer and more friable, appearing to be scarcely burnt.[136] This
difference, at which M. Place was so much surprised, had its reason. The
makers understood that their enamel colours when vitrified would penetrate
deeper into and be more closely incorporated with the material upon which
they were placed were the latter not so completely hardened.

[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Babylonian brick; from the Louvre. 16 inches
square on face, and 4 inches thick.]

Crude brick, burnt brick, and brick enamelled, those were the only
materials at the command of the architect, in the cities, at least, of
Chaldaea. A few fragments of basalt and diorite have certainly been found in
their