We can scarcely hesitate to identify this mythic form with the Oannes, or sacred man-fish, who, according to the traditions preserved by Berossus, issued from the Erythræan Sea, instructed the Chaldæans, in all wisdom, in the sciences, and in the fine arts, and was afterwards worshipped as a god in the temples of Babylonia. Its body, says the historian, was that of a fish, _but under the head of a fish was that of a man_, and to its tail were joined women's feet. Five such monsters rose from the Persian Gulf at fabulous intervals of time.[140] The Dagon of the Philistines and of the inhabitants of the Phoenician coast was worshipped, according to the united opinion of the Hebrew commentators on the Bible, under the same form.[141] When the ark of the Lord was brought into the great temple of the idol at Ashdod, and the statue fell a second time, "the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the _fishy part_ of Dagon was left to him."[142] His worship appears to have extended over Syria, as well as Mesopotamia and Chaldæa. He had many temples, as we learn from the Bible, in the country of the Philistines, and it was probably under the ruins of one of them that Samson buried the people of Gaza who had "gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice."[143] We also find a Beth-Dagon, or the house of Dagon, amongst the uttermost cities of the children of Judah[144], and another city of the same name in the inheritance of the children of Asher.[145] The first doorway, guarded by the fish-gods, led into two small chambers opening into each other, and once panelled with bas-reliefs, the greater part of which had been destroyed. I shall call these chambers "the chambers of records," for, like "the house of the rolls," or records, which Darius ordered to be searched for the decree of Cyrus, concerning the building of the temple of Jerusalem[146], they appear to have contained the decrees of the Assyrian kings, as well as the archives of the empire. I have mentioned elsewhere[147] that the historical records and public documents of the Assyrians were kept on tablets and cylinders of baked clay. Many specimens have been brought to this country. The importance of such relics will be readily understood. They present, in a small compass, an abridgment, or recapitulation, of the inscriptions on the great monuments and palace walls, giving in a chronological series the events of each monarch's reign. The writing is so minute, and the letters are so close one to another, that it requires considerable experience to separate and transcribe them.