How were these cylinders carried? They must have been attached to the person or dress, both for the sake of the protecting the image with which most of them were engraved, and for convenience and readiness in use as seals. In Chaldæa the fashion seems to have been, at one time, to fasten them to the wrist. In those tombs at Warka and Mugheir that we have described, the cylinders were found on the floors of the tomb-chambers, close to the wrist-bones of the skeletons; and the latter had not been moved since the bodies to which they had belonged were laid in the grave.[300] This fashion was apparently abandoned by the Assyrians, for in those reliefs which reproduce the smallest details of dress and ornament with such elaboration, we can never find any trace of the seal beside the bracelets. It is probable that it was hung round the neck and put inside the dress, in front, for greater security. It never occurs among the emblematic objects of which the necklace that spreads over the chest outside the robe, is made up. To this day traders in the East keep their seals in a little bag which they carry in an inside pocket. [Illustration: FIG. 133.--Tablet with impression from a cylinder; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIG. 134.--Cylinder with ancient bronze mount; from Soldi.] [Illustration: FIG. 135.--Cylinder and attachment in one; from Soldi.] [Illustration: FIG. 136.--Chaldæan cylinder; from Ménant.] [Illustration: FIG. 137.--Impression from the same cylinder.] The practical requirements of the Mesopotamians were satisfied with a hasty impression from their seals, but we must be more difficult to please. Before we can study the cylinder with any completeness we must have an impression in which no detail of the intaglio is omitted; such a proof is to be obtained by a complete turn of the cylinder upon some very plastic material, such as modelling-wax, or fine and carefully mixed plaster-of-Paris. The operation requires considerable skill. When it is well performed it results in a minute bas-relief, a flat projection, in reverse, of the whole intaglio. The subject represented and its execution can be much better seen in a proof like this than on the original object, it is therefore by the help of such impressions that cylinders are always studied; we make use of them throughout this work. Our Figs. 136 and 137 give some idea of the change in appearance between a cylinder and its impression.