all of which could have been preserved so effectually in no
other way. There seems to be quite a difference of opinion as
to the origin of gem-engraving, some writers having ascribed
it to the Ethiopians ; some, with more probability, to the Egyptians ; while others are divided between the Chaldseans and the
Assyrians. Cesnola says the latter afford, beyond all question,
the earliest examples of the true process of engraving on hard
stones, the Egyptian intagli being merely incised with the
graver in much less obdurate materials. On the other hand,
M. Perrot believes Chaldaean engraving must have been among
the oldest of the kind, if not the earliest ; while that of the
Assyrians, like their sculpture and architecture, was imported
from Babylonia.
The wheel for cutting came into use in Chaldasa about the
eighth century, B. C, though engraving on precious stones was
understood ages before. By this art, much of their history has
been transmitted to posterity, as well as their religious beliefs,
represented by the figures of their divinities and sacred
emblems carved in cylinders, cones, scarabei, rings, tablets, and
other objects. The materials first employed for this purpose
were wood, bone, shell, marble, and steatite ; later, the harder
substances, such as serpentine, porphyry, basalt, syenite, hematite, bronze, and, finally, the same class of precious stones that
were subsequently used for engraving among the Greeks
and Romans. A fine cylinder in the New York Museum of
Art represents Izdubar and Hea-bani, the Hercules and
Theseus of Chaldaean mythology, engaged in a hand-to-hand
contest with a wild bull and a lion. It was cut on marble, or
porphyry, and dates some fifteen centuries before our era.
The production of Babylonian cylinders constituted a
national industry, carried on for many centuries ; while the
cities of Ur, Erech, and Arade, became famous schools of
