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The use of seal-cylinders of Babylonian pattern, and of clay as a writing material, in the age of Menes and his successors, confirms the conclusion to which the mode of burial points. The culture of Pharaonic Egypt must have been derived from the banks of the Euphrates.

The seal-cylinders of the reign of Sargon of Akkad represent the highest efforts of the gem-cutter's skill in ancient Babylonia, and a bas-relief of Naram-Sin, found at Diarbekr in northern Mesopotamia, while presenting close analogies to the Egyptian art of the Old Empire, is superior to anything of the kind as yet discovered in Babylonia of either an earlier or a later date.

The spot selected for the camp was a small mound to the south of the site of Telloh, and here, in the course of preparing the site for the encampment and digging the ditch, objects were found at a depth of less than a foot beneath the surface of the soil. These included daggers, copper vases, seal-cylinders, rings of lapis and cornelian, and pottery.

His naturalization in Canaan seems to belong to a very early period; at all events, in Sumerian he was called Martu, "the Amorite," and seal-cylinders speak of "the Martu gods." One of these has been found in the Lebanon. The Assyrian tablets tell us that he was also known as Dadu in the West, and under this form we find him in names like El-Dad and Be-dad, or Ben-Dad.

They consist of Egyptian beads and scarabs of the eighteenth dynasty, and on one of the beads are the name and title of "the royal wife Teie." Along with them were discovered beads of amber which came from the Baltic as well as seal-cylinders, some of them imported from Babylonia, others western imitations of Babylonian work.

M. de Clercq possesses two seal-cylinders of the same date as the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, on one of which is the cuneiform inscription "Hadad-sum, the citizen of Sidon, the crown of the gods," while on the other is "Anniy, the son of Hadad-sum, the citizen of Sidon."

Writing and literature, religion and mythology, history and science, all these were brought to the peoples of Canaan in the train of Babylonian conquest and trade. Art naturally went hand in hand with this imported culture. The seal-cylinders of the Chaldæans were imitated, and Babylonian figures and ornamental designs were borrowed and modified by the Canaanitish artists.

Very frequently lines of cuneiform writing were added, and a common formula gave the name of the owner of the seal, along with those of his father and of the deity whom he worshipped. One of the seal-cylinders found in Cyprus describes the owner as an adorer of "the god Naram-Sin."

More than one has been found in Syria and Cyprus which go back to the age of Sargon and Naram-Sin, while there are numerous others which are more or less barbarous attempts on the part of the natives to imitate the Babylonian originals. But the imitations prove that with the fall of Sargon's empire the use of seal-cylinders in Syria, and consequently of documents for sealing, did not disappear.

Material: a grey or a white limestone most usual; tufa and dolerite also used. Flint carved and engraved cylinder- seals, of limestone, black basalt, jasper, diorite, &c. Shell. Very largely used for decoration; small plaques of nacre often engraved with scenes of men worshipping, &c. Seal-cylinders of shell. Wood. Burials.