[Illustration:  PLATE 86]

[Illustration:  PLATE 87]

To this account of the arts, mimetic and other, in which the Assyrians appear to have excelled, it might be expected that there should be added a sketch of their scientific knowledge.  On this subject, however, so little is at present known, while so much may possibly become known within a short time, that it seems best to omit it, or to touch it only in the lightest and most cursory manner.  When the numerous tablets now in the British Museum shall have been deciphered, studied, and translated, it will probably be found that they contain a tolerably full indication of what Assyrian science really was, and it will then be seen how far it was real and valuable, in what respects mistaken and illusory.  At present this mine is almost unworked, nothing more having been ascertained than that the subjects whereof the tables treat are various, and their apparent value very different.  Comparative philology seems to have been largely studied, and the works upon it exhibit great care and diligence.  Chronology is evidently much valued, and very exact records are kept whereby the lapse of time can even now be accurately measured.  Geography and history have each an important place in Assyrian learning; while astronomy and mythology occupy at least as great a share of attention.  The astronomical observations recorded are thought to be frequently inaccurate, as might be expected when there were no instruments, or none of any great value.  Mythology is a very favorite subject, and appears to be treated most fully; but hitherto cuneiform scholars have scarcely penetrated below the surface of the mythological tablets, baffled by the obscurity of the subject and the difficulty of the dialect (in) which they are written.

[Illustration:  PLATE 88]

On one point alone, belonging to the domain of science, do the Assyrian representations of their life enable us to comprehend, at least to some extent, their attainments.  The degree of knowledge which this people possessed on the subject of practical mechanics is illustrated with tolerable fulness in the bas-reliefs, more especially in the important series discovered at Koyunjik, where the transport of the colossal bulls from the quarry to the palace gateways is represented in the most elaborate detail. [PLATE LXXXVIII.] The very fact that they were able to transport masses of stone, many tons in weight, over a considerable space of ground, and to place then on the summit of artificial platforms from thirty to eighty (or ninety) feet high, would alone indicate considerable mechanical knowledge.  The further fact, now made clear from the bas-reliefs, that they wrought all the elaborate carving of the colossi before they proceeded to raise them or put them in place, is an additional argument of their skill, since it shows that they had no fear of any accident happening in the transport.  It appears from the representations that they placed their colossus