To get a clear idea of the industrial operations of the country, it would be necessary to see the various corporations at their work, as we are able to do, in the case of Egypt in the scenes of the mastabas of Saqqara, or of the rock-chambers of Beni-Hasan.  The manufacture of stone implements gave considerable employment, and the equipment of the dead in the tombs of Uru would have been a matter of small moment, if we were to exclude its flint implements, its knives, cleavers, scrapers, adzes, axes, and hammers.  The cutting of these objects is bold, and the final touches show skill, but we rarely meet with that purity of contour and intensity of polish which distinguish similar objects among Western peoples.  A few examples, it is true, are of fairly artistic shape, and bear engraved inscriptions:  one of these, a flint hammer of beautiful form, belonged to a god, probably Eamman, and seems to have come from a temple in which one of its owners had deposited it.

[Illustration:  311a.jpg CHALDAEAN STONE IMPLEMENTS.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sketches published by Taylor and by ’G.  Rawlinson.  On the left a scraper and two knives one above the other, an axe in the middle, on the right an axe and a hammer.  All these objects were found in Taylor’s excavations, and are now in the British Museum.

It is an exception, and a remarkable exception.  Stone was the material of the implements of the poor—­implements which were coarse in shape, and cost little:  if much care were given to their execution, they would come to be so costly that no one would buy them, or, if sold for a moderate sum, the seller would obtain no profit from the transaction.  Beyond a certain price, it was more advantageous to purchase metal implements, of copper in the early ages, afterwards of bronze, and lastly of iron.  Among the metal-founders and smiths all kinds of examples of these were to be found—­axes of an elegant and graceful design, hammers and knives, as well as culinary and domestic utensils, cups, cauldrons, dishes, mountings of doors and coffers, statuettes of men, bulls, monsters, and gods—­which could be turned to weapons of all descriptions—­arrow and lance heads, swords, daggers, and rounded helmets with neck-piece or visor.

[Illustration:  311b.jpg CHALDAEAN STONE HAMMER BEARING AN INSCRIPTION.]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the illustration published by
     Fr. Lenormant.

[Illustration:  CHALDAEN IMPLEMENTS OF BRONZE]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Rawlinson’s Five Great
     Monarchies.  On the right two axes, in the middle a hammer,
     on the left a knife, and below the head of a lance.