p. 333 | Books Made of Clay by Harper's Young People

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 29, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 21.

Books Made of Clay.

By Harper's Young People

FAR away beyond the plains of Mesopotamia, on the banks of the river Tigris, lie the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh. Not long since, huge mounds of earth and stone marked the place where the palaces and walls of the proud capital of the great Assyrian empire stood. The spade, first of the Frenchman, then of the Englishman, has cleared all the earth away, and laid bare all that remains of the old streets and palaces where the princes of Assyria walked and lived. The gods they worshiped and the books they read have all been revealed to the sight of a wondering world. The most curious of all the curious things preserved in this wonderful manner are the clay books of Nineveh.

The chief library of Nineveh was contained in the palace of Konyunjik. The clay books which it contains are composed of sets of tablets covered with very small writing. The tablets are oblong in shape; and, when several of them are used for one book, the first line of the tablet following was written at the end of the one preceding it. The writing on the tablets was of course done when the clay was soft, and then it was baked to harden it. Then, each tablet or book was numbered, and assigned to a place in the library with a corresponding number, so that the librarian could readily find it, just as our librarians of to-day number the books we read.

Among these books are to be found collections of hymns (to the gods), descriptions of animals and birds, stones and vegetables, as well as history, travels, etc. Perhaps those little Ninevite children of long ago took the same delight that young readers now do in stories of the birds, beasts, and insects of Assyria.

The Assyrians and Babylonians were great students of astronomy. The method of telling time by the sun, and marking it by the instrument called a sun-dial, was invented by the latter nation. None of our modern clocks and watches can be compared to the sun-dial for accuracy. Indeed, we have to regulate our modern inventions by the old Babylonian one.—Harper's Young People.