* Most modern writers understand by tapestry what the ancients were accustomed to call needle embroidery or painting on stuffs:  I can find no indication on the most ancient monuments of Chaldaean or Egypt of the manufacturing of real tapestry.

[Illustration:  316.jpg Egyptian Manuscript]

     Part of an Egyptian Manuscript found in the Swathing of a
     Mummy

[Illustration:  316-text.jpg Egyptian Manuscript]

Most of these stuffs preserved their original white or creamy colour—­especially those woven at home by the women for the requirements of their own toilet, and for the ordinary uses of the household.  The Chaldaeans, however, like many other Asiatic peoples, had a strong preference for lively colours, and the outdoor garments and gala attire of the rich were distinguished by a profusion of blue patterns on a red ground, or red upon blue, arranged in stripes, zigzags, checks, and dots or circles.  There must, therefore, have been as much occupation for dyers as there was for weavers; and it is possible that the two operations were carried out by the same hands.  We know nothing of the bakers, butchers, carriers, masons, and other artisans who supplied the necessities of the cities:  they were doubtless able to make two ends meet and nothing more, and if we should succeed some day in obtaining information about them, we shall probably find that their condition was as miserable as that of their Egyptian contemporaries.  The course of their lives was monotonous enough, except when it was broken at prescribed intervals by the ordinary festivals in honour of the gods of the city, or by the casual suspensions of work occasioned by the triumphant return of the king from some warlike expedition, or by his inauguration of a new temple.

The gaiety of the people on such occasions was the more exuberant in proportion to the undisturbed monotony or misery of the days which preceded them.  As soon, for instance, as Gudea had brought to completion Ininnu, the house of his patron Ningirsu, “he felt relieved from the strain and washed his hands.  For seven days, no grain was bruised in the quern, the maid was the equal of her mistress, the servant walked in the same rank as his master, the strong and the weak rested side by side in the city.”  The world seemed topsy-turvy as during the Roman Saturnalia; the classes mingled together, and the inferiors were probably accustomed to abuse the unusual licence which they momentarily enjoyed:  when the festival was over, social distinctions reasserted themselves, and each one fell back into his accustomed position.  Life was not so pleasant in Chaldaea as in Egypt.  The innumerable promissory notes, the receipted accounts, the contracts of sale and purchase—­these cunningly drawn up deeds which have been deciphered by the hundred—­reveal to us a people greedy of gain, exacting, litigious, of artisans in Egypt.  This is taken from a source belonging to the XIIth or possibly the XIIIth dynasty.  We may assume, from the fact that the two civilizations were about on the same level, that the information supplied in this respect by the Egyptian monuments is generally applicable to the condition of Chaldaean workmen of the same period.