Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/342

320 A HISTORY OF ART IN CIIALD/EA AND ASSYRIA. and race of him who shall injure the works of my hand, or who shall carry off my treasure ! " A little higher up, where Sargon recounts the founding of the palace, occurs a phrase which M. Oppert translates: "The people threw their amulets." What Sargon meant by this the excavations of M. Place have shown. In the foundations of the town walls, and especially in the beds of sand between the bases of the sculptured bulls that guard the doorways, he found hundreds of small objects, such as cylinders, cones, and terra-cotta statuettes. The most curious of these are now deposited in the Louvre. The numbers and the character of these things prove that a great FIG. 150. Terra-cotta cylinder. One-third of actual size ; from Place. number of the people must have assisted at the ceremony of consecration. Several of these amulets were not without value either for their material or their workmanship, but the great majority were of the roughest kind, some being merely shells or stones with a hole through them, which must have belonged to the poorest class of the community. In many cases their proper use could be easily divined ; the holes with which they were pierced and other marks of wear showed them to be personal amulets. 1 Those present at the ceremony of consecrating the foundations 1 PLACE, Ninive, vol. i. p. 188.