Assyrian cymbals closely resembled those in common use throughout the East at the present day. They consisted of two hemispheres of metal, probably of bronze, running off to a point, which was elongated into a bar or handle. The player grasped a cymbal in each hand, and either clashed theme together horizontally, or else, holding one cupwise in his left, brought the other down upon it perpendicularly with his right. [PLATE CXXX., Fig. 1.]

Two drums are represented on the Assyrian sculptures.

One is a small instrument resembling the tubbul, now frequently used by Eastern dancing girls. The other is of larger size, like the tubbul at top, but descending gradually in the shape of an inverted cone, and terminating almost in a point at bottom. Both were carried in front, against the stomach of the player—attached, apparently, to his girdle; and both were played in the same way, namely, with the fingers of the open hands on the top. [PLATE CXXX., Fig. 2.]

A few instruments carried by musicians are of an anomalous appearance, and do not admit of identification with any known species. One, which is borne by a musician in a processional scene belonging to the time of Sennacherib, resembles in shape a bag turned upside-down. By the manner in which it is held, we may conjecture that it was a sort of rattle—a hollow square box of wood or metal, containing stones or other hard substances which produced a jingling noise when shaken. But the purpose of the semicircular bow which hangs from the box is difficult to explain, unless we suppose that it was merely a handle by which to carry the instrument when not in use. Rattles of different kinds are found among the musical instruments of Egypt; and one of them consists of a box with a long handle attached to it. The jingling noise produced by such instruments may have corresponded to the sound now emitted by the side-rings of the tambourine.

Another curious-looking instrument occurs in a processional scene of the time of Asshur-bani-pal, which has been compared to the modern santour, a sort of dulcimer. It consisted (apparently) of a number of strings, certainly not fewer than ten stretched over a hollow case or sounding-board. The musician seems to have struck the strings with a small bar or hammer held in his right hand, while at the same time he made some use of his left hand in pressing them so as to produce the right note. It is clear that this instrument must have been suspended round the neck, though the Assyrian artist has omitted to represent the belt which kept it in place. [PLATE CXXIX., Fig. 2.]

In addition to all these various instruments, it is possible that the Assyrians may have made use of a sort of horn. An object is represented on a slab of Sennacherib’s which is certainly either a horn or a speaking-trumpet. It is carried by one of the supervisors of the works in a scene representing the conveyance of a colossal bull to its destination. In shape it no doubt resembles the modern speaking-trumpet, but it is almost equally near to the tuba or military trumpet of the Greeks and Romans. This will appear sufficiently on a comparison of the two representations, one of which is taken from Mr. Layard’s representation of Sennacherib’s slab, while the other is from a sculpture on the column of Trajan. As we have no mention of the speaking-trumpet in any ancient writer, as the shape of the object under consideration is that of a known ancient instrument of music, and as an ordinary horn would have been of great use in giving signals to workmen engaged as the laborers are upon the sculpture, it seems best to regard the object in question as such a horn—an instrument of great power, but of little compass—more suitable therefore for signal-giving than for concerts. [PLATE CXXX., Fig. 3.]

Passing now from the instruments of the Assyrians to the general features and character of their music, we may observe, in the first place, that while it is fair to suppose them acquainted with each form of the triple symphony, there is only evidence that they knew of two forms out of the three—viz, the harmony of instruments, and that of instruments and voices in combination. Of these two they seem greatly to have preferred the concert of instruments without voices; indeed, one instance alone shows that they were not wholly ignorant of the more complex harmony. Even this leaves it doubtful whether they themselves practised it: for the singers and musicians represented as uniting their efforts are not Assyrians, but Susianians, who come out to greet their conquerors, and do honor to the new sovereign who has been imposed on them, with singing, playing, and dancing.

Assyrian bands were variously composed. The simplest consisted of two harpers. A band of this limited number seems to have been an established part of the religious ceremonial on the return of the monarch from the chase, when a libation was poured over the dead game. The instrument in use on these occasions was the antique harp, which was played, not with the hand, but with the plectrum. A similar band appears on one occasion in a triumphal return from a military expedition belonging to the time of Sennacherib. [PLATE CXXI.]

In several instances we find bands of three musicians. In one case all three play the lyre. The musicians here are certainly captives, whom the Assyrians have borne off front their own country. It has been thought that their physiognomy is Jewish, and that the lyre which they bear in their hands may represent that “kind of harp” which the children of the later captivity hung up upon the willows when they wept by the rivers of Babylon. There are no sufficient grounds, however, for this identification. The lyre may be pronounced foreign, since it is unlike any other specimen; but its ornamentation with an animal head is sufficient to show that it is not Jewish. And the Jewish kinnor was rather a harp than a lyre, and had certainly more than four strings. Still, the employment of captives as musicians is interesting, though we cannot say that the captives are Jews. It shows us that the Assyrians, like the later Babylonians, were in the habit of “requiring” music from their prisoners, who, when transported into a “strange land,” had to entertain their masters with their native melodies.

Another band of three exhibits to us a harper, a player on the lyre, and a player on the double pipe. A third shows a harper, a player on the lyre, and a musician whose instrument is uncertain. In this latter case it is quite possible that there may originally have been more musicians than three, for the sculpture is imperfect, terminating in the middle of a figure.

Bands of four performers are about as common as bands of three. On an obelisk belonging to the time of Asshur-izir-pal we see a band composed of two cymbal-players and two performers on the lyre. A slab of Sennacherib’s exhibits four harpers arranged in two pairs, all playing with the plectrum on the antique harp. Another of the same date, which is incomplete, shows us a tambourine-player, a cymbal-player, a player on the nondescript instrument which has been called a sort of rattle, and another whose instrument cannot be distinguished. In a sculpture of a later period, which is represented above, we see a band of four, composed of a tambourine-player, two players on two different sorts of lyres, and a cymbal-player.

It is not often that we find representations of bands containing more than four performers. On the sculptures hitherto discovered there seem to be only three instances where this number was exceeded. A bas-relief of Sennacherib’s showed five players, of whom two had tambourines; two, harps of the antique pattern; and one, cymbals. Another, belonging to the time of his grandson, exhibited a band of seven, three of whom played upon harps of the later fashion, two on the double pipe, one on the guitar, and one on the long drum with the conical bottom. Finally, we have the remarkable scene represented in the illustration, a work of the sane date, where no fewer than twenty-six performers are seen uniting their efforts. Of these, eleven are players on instruments, while the remaining fifteen are vocalists. The instruments consist of seven harps, two double pipes, a small drum or tubbel, and the curious instrument which has been compared to the modern santour. The players are all men, six out of the eleven being eunuchs. The singers consist of six women and nine children of various ages, the latter of whom seem to accompany their singing, as the Hebrews and Egyptians sometimes did, with clapping of the hands. Three out of the first four musicians are represented with one leg raised, as if dancing to the measure. [PLATE CXXXII., Fig. 1.]

Bands in Assyria had sometimes, though not always, time-keepers or leaders, who took the direction of the performance. These were commonly eunuchs, as indeed were the greater number of the musicians. They held in one hand a double rod or wand, with which most probably they made their signals, and stood side by side facing the performers. [PLATE CXXXII., Fig. 2.]

The Assyrians seem to have employed music chiefly for festive and religious purposes. The favorite instrument in the religious ceremonies was the antique harp, which continued in use as a sacred instrument from the earliest to the latest times. On festive occasions the lyre was preferred, or a mixed band with a variety of instruments. In the quiet of domestic life the monarch and his sultana were entertained with concerted music played by a large number of performers: while in processions and pageants, whether of a civil or of a military character, bands were also very generally employed, consisting of two, three, four, five, or possibly more, musicians. Cymbals, the tambourine, and the instrument which has been above regarded as a sort of rattle, were peculiar to these processional occasions: the harp, the lyre, and the double pipe had likewise a place in them.

In actual war, it would appear that music was employed very sparingly, if at all, by the Assyrians. No musicians are ever represented in the battle-scenes: nor are the troops accompanied by any when upon the march. Musicians are only seen conjoined with troops in one or two marching processions, apparently of a triumphal character. It may consequently be doubted whether the Assyrian armies, when they went out on their expeditions, were attended, like the Egyptian and Roman armies, by military bands. Possibly, the musicians in the processional scenes alluded to belong to the court rather than to the camp, and merely take part as civilians in a pageant, wherein a share is also assigned to the soldiery.

In proceeding, as already proposed, to speak of the navigation of the Assyrians, it must be at once premised that it is not as mariners, but only as fresh-water sailors, that they come within the category of navigators at all. Originally an inland people, they had no power, in the earlier ages of their history, to engage in any but the secondary and inferior kind of navigation; and it would seem that, by the time when they succeeded in opening to themselves through their conquests a way to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, their habits had become so fixed in this respect that they no longer admitted of change. There is satisfactory evidence which shows that they left the navigation of the two seas at the two extremities of their empire to the subject nations—the Phoenicians and the Babylonians contenting themselves with the profits without sharing the dangers of marine voyages, while their own attention was concentrated upon their two great rivers—the Tigris and the Euphrates, which formed the natural line of communication between the seas in question.

The navigation of these streams was important to the Assyrians in two ways. In the first place it was a military necessity that they should be able, readily and without delay, to effect the passage of both of them, and also of their tributaries, which were frequently too deep to be forded. Now from very early times it was probably found tolerably easy to pass an army over a great river by swimming, more especially with the aid of inflated skins, which would be soon employed for the purpose. But the materiel of the army—the provisions, the chariots, and the siege machines—was not so readily transported, and indeed could only be conveyed across deep rivers by means of bridges, rafts, or boats. On the great streams of the Tigris and Euphrates, with their enormous spring floods, no bridge, in the ordinary sense of the word, is possible. Bridges of boats are still the only ones that exist on either river below the point at which they issue from the gorges of the mountains. And these would be comparatively late inventions, long subsequent to the employment of single ferry boats. Probably the earliest contrivance for transporting the chariots, the stores, and the engines across a river was a raft, composed hastily of the trees and bushes growing in the neighborhood of the stream, and rendered capable of sustaining a considerable weight by the attachment to it of a number of inflated skins. A representation of such a raft, taken from a slab of Sennacherib, has been already given. Rafts of this kind are still largely employed in the navigation of the Mesopotamian streams, and, being extremely simple in their construction, may reasonably be supposed to have been employed by the Assyrians from the very foundation of their empire.

To these rafts would naturally have succeeded boats of one kind or another. As early as the time of Tiglath-Pileser I. (ab. B.C. 1120) we find a mention of boats as employed in the passage of the Euphrates. These would probably be of the kind described by Herodotus, and represented on one of the most ancient bas-reliefs—round structures like the Welsh coracles, made of wickerwork and covered with skins, smeared over with a coating of bitumen. Boats of this construction were made of a considerable size. The one represented contains a chariot, and is navigated by two men. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 1.] In the later sculptures the number of navigators is raised to four, and the boats carry a heavy load of stone or other material. The mode of propulsion is curious and very unusual. The rowers sit at the stem and stern, facing each other, and while those at the stem pull, those at the stern must have pushed, as Herodotus tells us that they did. The make of the oars is also singular. In the earliest sculptures they are short poles, terminating in a head, shaped like a small axe or hammer; in the later, below this axe-like appendage, they have a sort of curved blade, which is, however, not solid, but perforated, so as to form a mere framework, which seems to require filling up. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 3.]

Beside these round boats, which correspond closely with the kufas in use upon the Tigris and Euphrates at the present day, the Assyrians employed for the passage of rivers, even in very early times, a vessel of a more scientific construction. The early bas-reliefs exhibit to us, together with the kufas, a second and much larger vessel, manned with a crew of seven men—a helmsman and six rowers, three upon either side and capable of conveying across a broad stream two chariots at a time, or a chariot and two or three passengers. This vessel appears to have been made of planks. It was long, and comparatively narrow. It had a flattish bottom, and was rounded off towards the stem and stern, much as boats are rounded off towards the bows at the present day. It did not possess either mast or sail, but was propelled wholly by oars, which were of the same shape as those used anciently by the rowers in the round boats. In the steersman’s hand is seen an oar of a different kind. It is much longer than the rowing oars, and terminates in an oval blade, which would have given it considerable power in the water. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 4.] The helmsman steered with both hands; and it seems that his oar was lashed to an upright post near the stern of the vessel.

It is evident that before armies could look habitually to being transported across the Mesopotamian streams, wherever they might happen to strike them in their expeditions, by boats of these two kinds, either ferries must have been established at convenient intervals upon them, or traffic along their courses by means of boats must have been pretty regular. An Assyrian army did not carry its boats with it, as a modern army does its pontoons. Boats were commonly found in sufficient numbers on the streams themselves when an army needed them, and were impressed, or hired, to convey the troops across. And thus we see that the actual navigation of the streams had another object besides the military one of transport from bank to bank. Rivers are Nature’s roads; and we may be sure that the country had not been long settled before a water communication began to be established between towns upon the river-courses, and commodities began to be transported by means of them. The very position of the chief towns upon time banks of the streams was probably connected with this sort of transport, the rivers furnishing the means by which large quantities of building material could be conveniently concentrated at a given spot, and by which supplies could afterwards be regularly received from a distance. We see in the Assyrian sculptures the conveyance of stones, planks, etc. along the rivers, as well as the passage of chariots, horses, and persons across them. Rafts and round boats were most commonly used for this purpose. When a mass of unusual size, as a huge paving-stone, or a colossal bull or lion, had to be moved, a long, flat-bottomed boat was employed, which the mass sometimes more than covered. In this case, as there was no room for rower’s, trackers were engaged, who dragged the vessel along by means of ropes, which were fastened either to the boat itself or to its burden. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 2.]

During the later period of the monarchy various improvements took place in Assyrian boat-building. The Phoenician and Cyprian expeditions of the later kings made the Assyrians well acquainted with the ships of first-rate nautical nations; and they seem to have immediately profited by this acquaintance, in order to improve the appearance and the quality of their own river boats. The clumsy and inelegant long-boat of the earlier times, as replaced, even for ordinary traffic, by a light and graceful fabric, which was evidently a copy from Phoenician models. Modifications, which would seem trifling if described, changed the whole character of the vessels, in which light and graceful curves took the place of straight lines and angles only just rounded off. The stem and stern were raised high above the body of the boat, and were shaped like fishes’ tails or carved into the heads of animals. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 2.] Oars, shaped nearly like modern ones, came into vogue, and the rowers were placed so as all to look one way, and to pull instead of pushing with their oars. Finally, the principle of the bireme was adopted, and river-galleys were constructed of such a size that they had to be manned by thirty rowers, who sat in two tiers one above the other at the sides of the galley, while the centre part, which seems to have been decked, was occupied by eight or ten other persons.

In galleys of this kind the naval architecture of the Assyrians seems to have culminated. They never, so far as appears, adopted for their boats the inventions with which their intercourse with Phoenicia had rendered them perfectly familiar, of masts, and sails. This is probably to be explained from the extreme rapidity of the Mesopotamian rivers, on which sailing boats are still uncommon. The unfailing strength of rowers was needed in order to meet and stem the force of the currents; and this strength being provided in abundance, it was not thought necessary to husband it or eke it out by the addition of a second motive power. Again, the boats, being intended only for peaceful purposes, were unprovided with beaks, another invention well known to the Assyrians, and frequently introduced into their sculptures in the representations of Phoenician vessels. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 5.]

In the Assyrian biremes the oars of the lower tier were worked through holes in the vessel’s sides. This arrangement would of course at once supply a fulcrum and keep the oars in their places. But it is not so easy to see how the oar of a common row-boat, or the uppermost tier of a bireme, obtained their purchase on the vessel, and were prevented from slipping along its side. Assyrian vessels had no rowlocks, and in general the oars are represented as simply rested without any support on the upper edge of the bulwark. But this can scarcely have been the real practice; and one or two representations, where a support is provided, may be fairly regarded as showing what the practice actually was. In the figure of a kufa, or round boat, already given, it will be seen that one oar is worked by means of a thong, like the [—] or [—] of the Greeks, which is attached to a ring in the bulwark. In another bas-relief, several of the oars of similar boats are represented as kept in place by means of two pegs fixed into the top of the bulwark and inclined at an angle to one another. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 6.] Probably one or other of these two methods of steadying the oar was in reality adopted in every instance.

With regard to Assyrian commerce, it must at the outset be remarked that direct notices in ancient writers of any real authority are scanty in the extreme. The prophet Nahum says indeed, in a broad and general way, of Nineveh, “Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven;” and Ezekiel tells us, more particularly, that Assyrian merchants, along with others, traded with Tyre “in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel.” But, except these two, there seem to be no notices of Assyrian trade in any contemporary or quasi-contemporary author. Herodotus, writing nearly two hundred years after the empire had come to an end, mentions casually that “Assyrian wares” had in very ancient times been conveyed by the Phoenicians to Greece, and there sold to the inhabitants. He speaks also of a river traffic in his own day between Armenia and Babylon along the course of the Euphrates, a fact which indirectly throws light upon the habits of earlier ages. Diodorus, following Ctesias, declares that a number of cities were established from very ancient times on the banks of both the Tigris and the Euphrates, to serve as marts of trade to the merchants who imported into Assyria the commodities of Media and Paraetacene. Among the most important of these marts, as we learn from Strabo, were Tiphsach or Thapsacus on the Euphrates, and Opis upon the Tigris.

It is from notices thus scanty, partial, and incidental, eked out by probability, and further helped by a certain number of important facts with respect to the commodities actually used in the country, whereof evidence has been furnished to us by the recent discoveries, that we have to form our estimate of the ancient commerce of the Assyrians. The Inscriptions throw little or no light upon the subject. They record the march of armies against foreign enemies, and their triumphant return laden with plunder and tribute, sometimes showing incidentally what products of a country were most in request among the Assyrians; but they contain no accounts of the journeys of merchants, or of the commodities which entered or quitted the country in the common course of trade.

The favorable situation of Assyria for trade has often attracted remark. Lying on the middle courses of two great navigable streams, it was readily approached by water both from the north-west and from the south-east. The communication between the Mediterranean and the Southern or Indian Ocean naturally—almost necessarily—followed this route. If Europe wanted the wares and products of India, or if India required the commodities of Europe, by far the shortest and easiest course was the line from the eastern Mediterranean across Northern Syria, and thence by one or other of the two great streams to the innermost recess of the Persian Gulf. The route by the Nile, the canal of Neco, and the Red Sea, was decidedly inferior, more especially on account of the dangerous navigation of that sea, but also because it was circuitous, and involved a voyage in the open ocean of at least twice the length of the other.

Again, Assyria lay almost necessarily on the line of land communication between the north-east and the south-west. The lofty Armenian mountain-chains—Niphates and the other parallel ranges—towards the north, and the great Arabian Desert towards the south, offered difficulties to companies of land-traders which they were unwilling to face, and naturally led them to select routes intermediate between these two obstacles, which could not fail to pass through some part or other of the Mesopotamian region.

The established lines of land trade between Assyria and her neighbors were probably very numerous, but the most important must have been some five or six. One almost certainly led from the Urumiyeh basin over the Keli-shin pass (lat. 37°, long. (45° nearly)), descending on Rowandiz, and thence following the course of the Greater Zab to Herir, whence it crossed the plain to Nineveh. At the summit of the Kell-shin pass is a pillar of dark blue stone, six feet in height, two in breadth, and one in depth, let into a basement block of the same material, and covered with a cuneiform inscription in the Scythic character. At a short distance to the westward on the same route is another similar pillar. The date of the inscriptions falls within the most flourishing time of the Assyrian empire, and their erection is a strong argument in favor of the use of this route (which is one of the very few possible modes of crossing the Zagros range) in the time when that empire was in full vigor.

Another line of land traffic probably passed over the same mountain-range considerably further to the south. It united Assyria with Media, leading from the Northern Ecbatana (Takht-i-Suleiman) by the Banneh pass to Suleimaniyeh, and thence by Kerkuk and Altura-Kiupri to Arbela and Nineveh.

There may have been also a route up the valley of the Lesser Zab, by Koi-Sinjah and over the great Kandil range into Lajihan. There are said to be Assyrian remains near Koi-Sinjah, at a place called the Bihisht and Jehennen (“the Heaven and Hell”) of Nimrud, but no account has been given of them by any European traveller.

Westward there were probably two chief lines of trade with Syria and the adjacent countries. One passed along the foot of the Sinjar range by Sidikan (Arban) on the Khabour to Tiphsach (or Thapsacus) on the Euphrates, where it crossed the Great River. Thence it bent southwards, and, passing through Tadmor, was directed upon Phoenicia most likely by way of Damascus. Another took a more northern line by the Mons Masius to Harran and Seruj, crossing the Euphrates at Bir, and thence communicating both with Upper Syria and with Asia Minor. The former of these two routes is marked as a line of traffic by the foreign objects discovered in such abundance at Arban, by the name Tiphsach, which means “passage,” and by the admitted object of Solomon in building Tadmor. The other rests on less direct evidence; but there are indications of it in the trade of Harran with Tyre which is mentioned by Ezekiel, and in the Assyrian remains near Seruj, which is on the route from Harran to the Bir fordway.

Towards the north, probably, the route most used was that which is thought by many to be the line followed by Xenophon, first up the valley of the Tigris to Til or Tilleh, and then along the Bitlis Chai to the lake of Van and the adjacent country. Another route may have led from Nineveh to Nisibis, thence through the Jebel Tur to Diarbekr, and from Diarbekr up the Western Tigris to Arghana, Kharput, Malatiyeh, and Asia Minor. Assyrian remains have been found at various points along this latter line, while the former is almost certain to have connected the Assyrian with the Armenian capital.

Armenian productions would, however, reach Nineveh and the other great central cities mainly by the Tigris, down which they could easily have been floated from Tilleh. or even from Diarbekr. Similarly, Babylonian and Susianian productions, together with the commodities which either or both of those countries imported by sea, would find their way into Assyria up the courses of the two streams, which were navigated by vessels capable of stemming the force of the current, at least as high as Opis and Thapsacus.

We may now proceed to inquire what were the commodities which Assyria, either certainly or probably, imported by these various lines of land and water communication. Those of which we seem to have some indication in the existing remains are gold, tin, ivory, lead, stones of various kinds, cedar-wood, pearls, and engraved seals.

Many articles in gold have been recovered at the various Assyrian sites where excavations have been made; and indications have been found of the employment of this precious metal in the ornamentation of palaces and of furniture. The actual quantity discovered has, indeed, been small; but this may be accounted for without calling in question the reality of that extraordinary wealth in the precious metals which is ascribed by all antiquity to Assyria. This wealth no doubt flowed in, to a considerable extent, from the plunder of conquered nations and the tribute paid by dependent monarchs. But the quantity obtained in this way would hardly have sufficed to maintain the luxury of the court and at the same time to accumulate, so that when Nineveh was taken there was “none end” of the store. It has been suggested that “mines of gold were probably once worked within the Assyrian dominions,” although no gold is now known to be produced anywhere within her limits. But perhaps it is more probable that, like Judaea and Phoenicia, she obtained her gold in a great measure from commerce, taking it either from the Phoenicians, who derived it both from Arabia and from the West African coast, or else from the Babylonians, who may have imported it by sea from India.

Tin, which has not been found in a pure state in the remains of the Assyrians, but which enters regularly as an element into their bronze, where it forms from one-tenth to one-seventh of the mass, was also, probably, an importation. Tin is a comparatively rare metal. Abundant enough in certain places, it is not diffused at all widely over the earth’s surface. Neither Assyria itself nor any of the neighboring countries are known to have ever produced this mineral. Phoenicia certainly imported it, directly or indirectly, from Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, which therefore became first known in ancient geography as the Cassiterides or “Tin Islands.” It is a reasonable supposition that the tin wherewith the Assyrians hardened their bronze was obtained by their merchants from the Phoenicians in exchange for textile fabrics and (it may be) other commodities. If so, we may believe that in many instances the produce of our own tin mines which left our shores more than twenty-five centuries ago, has, after twice travelling a distance of many thousand miles, returned to seek a final rest in its native country.

Ivory was used by the Assyrians extensively in their furniture, and was probably supplied by them to the Phoenicians and the Greeks. It was no doubt sometimes brought to them by subject nations as tribute; but this source of supply is not sufficient to account, at once, for the consumption in Assyria itself, and for the exports from Assyria to foreign countries. A regular trade for ivory seems to have been carried on from very early times between India and Dedan (Bahrein,?) in the Persian Gulf. The travelling companies of the Dedanim, who conveyed this precious merchandise from their own country to Phoenicia, passed probably along the course of the Euphrates, and left a portion of their wares in the marts upon that stream, which may have been thence conveyed to the great Assyrian cities. Or the same people may have traded directly with Assyria by the route of the Tigris. Again, it is quite conceivable—indeed, it is probable—that there was a land traffic between Assyria and Western India by the way of Cabal, Herat, the Caspian Gates, and Media. Of this route we have a trace in the land animals engraved upon the well-known Black Obelisk, where the combination of the small-eared or Indian elephant and the rhinoceros with the two-humped Bactrian camel, sufficiently marks the line by which the productions of India, occasionally at, any rate, reached Assyria. The animals themselves were, we may be sure, very rarely transported. Indeed, it is not till the very close of the Persian empire that we find elephants possessed—and even then in scanty numbers—by the western Asiatic monarchs. But the more portable products of the Indus region, elephants’ tusks, gold, and perhaps shawls and muslins, are likely to have passed to the west by this route with far greater frequency.

The Assyrians were connoisseurs in hard stones and gems, which they seem to have imported from all quarters. The lapis lazuli, which is found frequently among the remains as the material of seals, combs, rings, jars, and other small objects, probably came from Bactria or the adjacent regions, whence alone it is procurable at the present day. The cornelian used for cylinders may have come from Babylonia, which, according to Pliny furnished it of the best quality in the more ancient times. The agates or onyxes may have been imported from Susiana, where they were found in the bed of the Choaspes (Kerkhah), or they may possibly have been brought from India. Other varieties are likely to have been furnished by Armenia, which is rich in stones; and hence too was probably obtained the shamir, or emery-stone, by means of which the Assyrians were enabled to engrave all the other hard substances known to them.

That cedar-wood was imported into Assyria is sufficiently indicated by the fact that, although no cedars grew in the country, the beams in the palaces were frequently of this material. It may not, however, have been exactly an article of commerce, since the kings appear to have cut it after their successful expeditions into Syria, and to have carried it off from Lebanon and Amanus as part of the plunder of the country.

Pearls, which have been found in Assyrian ear rings, must have been procured from the Persian Gulf, one of the few places frequented by the shell-fish which produces then. The pearl fisheries in these parts were pointed out to Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander, and had no doubt been made to yield their treasures to the natives of the coasts and islands from a remote antiquity. The familiarity of the author of the book of Job with pearls is to be ascribed to the ancient trade in them throughout the regions adjoining the Gulf, which could not fail to bring them at an early date to the knowledge of the Hebrews.

Engraved stones, generally in the shape of scarabs, seem to have been largely imported from Egypt into Assyria, where they were probably used either as amulets or as seals. They have been found in the greatest plenty at Arban on the lower Khabour, the ancient Sidikan or Shadikanni, which lies nearly at the extreme west of the Assyrian territory; but many specimens have likewise been obtained from Nineveh and other of the central Assyrian cities.

If we were to indulge in conjecture, we might add to this list of Assyrian importations at least an equal number of commodities which, though they have not been found in the ancient remains, may be fairly regarded, on grounds of probability, as objects of trade between Assyria and her neighbors. Frankincense, which was burnt in such lavish profusion in the great temple at Babylon, was probably offered in considerable quantities upon Assyrian altars, and could only have been obtained from Arabia. Cinnamon, which was used by the Jews from the time of the Exodus, and which was early imported into Greece by the Phoenicians, who received it from the Arabians can scarcely have been unknown in Assyria when the Hebrews were familiar with it. This precious spice must have reached the Arabians from Ceylon or Malabar, the most accessible of the countries producing it. Mullins, shawls, and other tissues are likely to have come by the same route as the cinnamon; and these may possibly have been among the “blue clothes and broidered work and rich apparel” which the merchants of Asshur carried to Tyre in “chests, bound with cords and made of cedar-wood.” Dyes, such as the Indian lacca, raw cotton, ebony and other woods, may have come by the same line of trade; while horses and mules are likely to have been imported from Armenia, and slaves from the country between Armenia and the Halys River.

If from the imports of Assyria we pass to her exports, we leave a region of uncertain light to enter upon one of almost total darkness. That the “wares of Assyria” were among the commodities which the Phoenicians imported into Greece at a very early period, we have the testimony of Herodotus; but he leaves us wholly without information as to the nature of the wares themselves. No other classical writer of real authority touches the subject; and any conclusions that we may form upon it must be derived from one of two sources, either general probability, or the single passage in a sacred author which gives us a certain amount of authentic information. From the passage in question, which has been already quoted at length, we learn that the chief of the Assyrian exports to Phoenicia were textile fabrics, apparently of great value, since they were most carefully packed in chests of cedar-wood secured by cords. These fabrics may have been “blue cloaks,” or “embroidery,” or “rich dresses” of any kind, for all these are mentioned by Ezekiel; but we cannot say definitely which Assyria traded in, since the merchants of various other countries are joined in the passage with hers. Judging by the monuments, we should conclude that at least a portion of the embroidered work was from her looms and workshops; for, as has been already shown, the embroidery of the Assyrians was of the most delicate and elaborate description. She is also likely to have traded in rich apparel of all kinds, both such as she manufactured at home, and such as she imported from the far East by the lines of traffic which have been pointed out. Some of her own fabrics may possibly have been of silk, which in Roman times was a principal Assyrian export. Whether she exported her other peculiar productions, her transparent and colored glass, her exquisite metal bowls, plates, and dishes, her beautifully carved ivories, we cannot say. They have not hitherto been found in any place beyond her dominion, so that it would rather seem that she produced them only for home consumption. Some ancient notices appear to imply a belief on the part of the Greeks and Romans that she produced and exported various spices. Horace speaks of Assyrian nard Virgil of Assyrian amomuum, Tibullus of Assyrian odors generally. AEschylus has an allusion of the same kind in his Agamemnon. Euripide, and Theocritus, who mention respectively Syrian myrrh and Syrian frankincense, probably use the word “Syrian” for “Assyrian.” The belief thus implied is not, however, borne out by inquiry. Neither the spikenard nor the amonmum, nor the myrrh tree, nor the frankincense tree, nor any other actual spice, is produced within the limits of Assyria, which must always have imported its own spices from abroad, and can only have supplied them to other countries as a carrier. In this capacity she may very probably, even in the time of her early greatness, have conveyed on to the coast of Syria the spicy products of Arabia and India, and thus have created an impression, which afterwards remained as a tradition, that she was a great spice-producer as well as a spice-seller.

In the same way, as a carrier, Assyria may have exported many other commodities. She may have traded with the Phoenicians, not only in her own products, but in the goods which she received from the south and east, from Bactria, India, and the Persian Gulf,—such as lapis lazuli, pearls, cinnamon, muslins, shawls, ivory, ebony, cotton. On the other hand, she may have conveyed to India, or at least to Babylon, the productions which the Phoenicians brought to Tyre and Sidon from the various countries bordering upon the Mediterranean Sea and even the Atlantic Ocean, as tin, hides, pottery, oil, wine, linen. On this point, however, we have at present no evidence at all; and as it is not the proper office of a historian to indulge at any length in mere conjecture, the consideration of the commercial dealings of the Assyrians may be here brought to a close.

On the agriculture of the Assyrians a very few remarks will be offered. It has been already explained that the extent of cultivation depended entirely on the conveyance of water. There is good reason to believe that the Assyrians found a way to spread water over almost the whole of their territory. Either by the system of kanats or subterranean aqueducts, which has prevailed in the East from very early times, or by an elaborate network of canals, the fertilizing fluid was conveyed to nearly every part of Mesopotamia, which shows by its innumerable mounds, in regions which are now deserts, how large a population it was made to sustain under the wise management of the great Assyrians monarchs. Huge dams seem to have been thrown across the Tigris in various places, one of which (the Afrui) still remains, seriously impeding the navigation. It is formed of large masses of squared stones, united together by cramps of iron. Such artificial barriers were intended, not (as Strabo believed) for the protection of the towns upon the river from a hostile fleet, but to raise the level of the stream, in order that its water might flow off into canals on one bank or the other, whence they could be spread by means of minor channels over large tracts of territory. The canals themselves have in most cases been gradually filled up. In one instance, however, owing either to the peculiar nature of the soil or to some unexplained cause, we are still able to trace the course of an Assyrian work of this class and to observe the manner and principles of its construction.