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Updated: June 13, 2025
How early this material was replaced by stone, we are not in a position to say. Gudea, who imports diorite from the Sinai Peninsula to make statues of himself, presumably uses a similar material for the sacred furnishings of his temples, though custom and conventionality may have maintained the use of the older clay material for some time.
In the mythology of Babylonia these tablets were stolen by the god of storms, who kept them in his thunder fastness. Among the forked flames of the lightning there they were recovered by Bel, who revealed the law to Khammurabi. The theophany is perhaps similar to that of Sinai. But perhaps, too, it is better attested. A diorite block, found at Susa in 1902, has the law engraved on it.
The discoveries made in Belgium must be ranked amongst the most important in Europe, and we shall often have occasion to refer to them. Holland, on the other hand, having much of it been under the sea for so long, yields nothing to our researches but a few arrow-heads, hatchets, and knives made of quartz or diorite, and all of them of the coarsest workmanship.
In the Mediterranean obsidian, a volcanic rock, occasionally took the place of flint, especially in Sardinia and Pantelleria. Axes or celts were often made of flint in Scandinavia and North Germany, but elsewhere other stones, such as jade, jadeite, and diorite were commonly used. We can only guess at the way in which the megalithic people were clothed.
Two rather curious ironstone dykes, standing square and wall-like above the ground, occur in these hills, some seven miles apart, running nearly North and South and parallel; between them a deep but narrow creek, a saltbush flat, and a ridge of diorite. Standing out prominently to the south of the first dyke are two sugar-loaf hills, and, beyond them, distant ranges are visible.
The laws are engraved on a great stele of diorite in no less than forty-nine columns of writing, of which forty-four are preserved,* and at the head of the stele is sculptured a representation of the king receiving them from Shamash, the Sun-god. * See King, Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi, 3 vols.
The tomb had been rifled in ancient days, but there still remained a golden hair-pin, parts of two silver vessels, and a large bronze mirror; while among the stone vessels found a diorite bowl again recalled the hard stone vessels of the Early Egyptian dynasties.
She paused by a square block of diorite, and Paulus, who had not failed to observe how heavy her steps were, desired her to sit down; he pushed up a flag of stone, which he propped with smaller ones, so that Sirona might not lack a support for her weary back.
This extraordinary document is a black diorite block 8 feet high, once containing 21 columns on the obverse, 16 and 28 columns on the reverse, with 2540 lines of writing of which now 1114 remain, and surmounted by the figure of the king receiving the law from the Sun-god.
He had been carved out of mahogany, and after he was carved he had been polished. Then they had set him up on the diorite pedestal with the brazier in front of it for burning spices and the flat gold plates for fat. Thus they worshipped Chu-bu.
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