The Accadians had been the inventors of the hieroglyphics or pictorial characters out of which the cuneiform characters had afterwards grown. Writing begins with pictures, and the writing of the Babylonians formed no exception to the rule. The pictures were at first painted on the papyrus leaves which grew in the marshes of the Euphrates, but as time went on a new and more plentiful writing material came to be employed in the shape of clay. Clay was literally to be found under the feet of every one. All that was needed was to impress it, while still wet, with the hieroglyphic pictures, and then dry it in the sun. It is probable that the bricks used in the construction of the great buildings of Chaldea were first treated in this way. At all events we find that up to the last, the Babylonian kings stamped their names and titles in the middle of such bricks, and hundreds of them may be met with in the museums of Europe bearing the name of Nebuchadnezzar. When once the discovery was made that clay could be employed as a writing material, it was quickly turned to good account. All Babylonia began to write on tablets of clay, and though papyrus continued to be used, it was reserved for what we should now term 'éditions de luxe.' The writing instrument had originally been the edge of a stone or a piece of stick, but these were soon superseded by a metal stylus with a square head. Under the combined influence of the clay tablet and the metal stylus, the old picture-writing began to degenerate into the cuneiform or 'wedge-shaped' characters with which the monuments of Assyria have made us familiar. It was difficult, if not impossible, any longer to draw circles and curves, and accordingly angles took the place of circles, and straight lines the place of curves. Continuous lines were equally difficult to form; it was easier to represent them by a series of indentations, each of which took a wedge-like appearance from the square head of the stylus. As soon as the exact forms of the old pictures began to be obliterated, other alterations became inevitable. The forms began to be simplified by the omission of lines or wedges which were no longer necessary, now that the character had become a mere symbol instead of a picture; and this process of simplification went on from one century to another, until in many instances the later form of a character is hardly more than a shadow of what it originally was. Education was widely spread in Babylonia; in spite of the cumbrousness and intricacy of the system of writing, there were few, it would appear, who could not read and write, and hence, as was natural, all kinds of handwritings were prevalent, some good and some bad. Among these various cursive or running hands were some which were selected for public documents; but as the hands varied, not only among individuals, but also from age to age, the official script never became fixed and permanent,