From the Bekten _stele_ we deduce a close intercourse between the two countries about the XIXth Dynasty, for we read of Rameses II.[901] being in Mesopotamia “according to his wont, year by year,” and receiving tributes and presents from the chiefs of the countries round about. The connection between Assyria (proper) and Egypt rests on ample evidence. Fish, or “beasts of the sea,” passed as presents, perhaps as trade. On the Broken Column of Tiglath-Pileser I. (Cylinder IV. 29-30) we read, “And a great beast of the River, a great beast of the Sea, the king of Musrê” (probably Egypt) “sent (unto him).” The _Select Papyri_ (pl. 75, 1, 7) tell of certain fish being brought, perhaps as a staple of trade, from the Puharuta or Euphrates to Egypt, and (in pl. 96, 1, 7) of another fish or fishy substance called _Rura_, being imported from the land of the great waters, Mesopotamia.[902] [Illustration: MEN FISHING ASTRIDE GOATSKINS.[903] From Assyrian Sculptures in Brit. Mus., No. 430. See n. 1, p. 355.] FOOTNOTES: [888] The term Assyrian in this chapter usually includes the Sumerians and Babylonians. [889] Lest Forlong’s sentence (_Rivers of Life_ (London, 1883), II. 89), “A beautiful Assyrian cylinder exhibits the worship of the Fish God; there we see the mitred Man-God with Rod and basket,” etc., be quoted in opposition, I would point out that this so-called Rod is merely a cut sapling, like the one in the hands of Heracles, but without a sign of any line, which in the Greek vase in the British Museum is obviously attached. Cf. _Élite des monuments Céramographiques_, vol. III., Plate I. [890] From the find (made during the war by a Sikh regiment on the Tigris above Samara) of an alabaster vase (now in the Ashmolean Museum), which from archæological reasons must be placed among the very earliest remnants of Sumerian civilisation, it is evident that—given the discovery was _in situ_—the frontiers of the Sumerian Empire must have extended much farther north than has been hitherto generally supposed. Owing to the deposits of the two rivers, the sea has receded some hundred and twenty miles. [891] The Sumerians made extensive use of music, especially in their religious ceremonies; they were the founders, according to Langdon, of liturgical music, which unfortunately it is impossible to reconstruct, as the notes themselves have not survived. [892] The Sumerian language was not well adapted to express peculiarly Semitic sounds. [893] Petrie (_Egypt and Israel_ (London, 1911), p. 15): “The Turanian race akin to the modern Mongols, known as Sumerians, had civilised the Euphrates valley for some thousands of years and produced a strong commercial and mathematical culture. The wandering Semite had at last been drawn into this settled system of life.” [894] S. Langdon, _Babylonian Magic_, Bologna, 1914.