_Records, Writing, and Paper_.--At an early period papyrus, a paper made of a reed that grows along the Nile valley, was among the first inventions. It was the earliest artificial writing material discovered by any nation of which we have a record; and we are likely to remember it from its two names, _biblos_ and _papyrus_, for from these come two of our most common words, bible and paper. Frequently, however, leather, pottery, tiles, and stone, and even wooden tablets, were used as substitutes for the papyrus. In the early period the Egyptians used the hieroglyphic form of writing, which consisted of rude pictures of objects which had a peculiar significance. Finally the hieratic simplified this form by symbolizing and conventionalizing to a large extent the hieroglyphic characters. Later came the demotic, which was a further departure from the old concrete form of representation, and had the advantage of being more readily written than either of the others.[1] These characters were used to inscribe the deeds of kings on monuments and tablets, and when in 1798 the key to the Egyptian writing was obtained through means of the Rosetta stone, the opportunity for a large addition to the history of Egypt was made. Strange as it may seem, these ancient people had written romances and fairy tales; one especially to be mentioned {182} is the common _Cinderella and the Glass Slipper_, written more than thirteen centuries B.C. But in addition to these were published documents, private letters, fables, epics, and autobiographies, and treatises on astronomy, medicine, history, and scientific subjects. The Babylonians and Assyrians developed the cuneiform method of writing. They had no paper, but made their inscriptions on clay tablets and cylinders. These were set away in rooms called libraries. The discovery of the great library of Ashur-bani-pal, of Nineveh, revealed the highest perfection of this ancient method of recording events. The art of Egypt was manifested in the dressing of precious stones, the weaving of fine fabrics, and fine work in gold ornaments. Sculpture and painting were practically unknown as arts, although the use of colors was practised to a considerable extent. Artistic energy was worked out in the making of the tombs of kings, the obelisks, the monuments, the sphinxes, and the pyramids. It was a conception of the massive in artistic expression. In Babylon and Nineveh, especially the latter, the work of sculpture in carving the celebrated winged bulls gives evidence of the attempt to picture power and strength rather than beauty. Doubtless the Babylonians developed artistic taste in the manufacture of jewelry out of precious stones and gold.