The harder stones were notwithstanding sometimes employed in Assyria just as limestone was occasionally used in Babylonia, but as a general rule, in either case for sculptural rather than building purposes. The well-known black obelisk of Shalmaneser II (860-825 B.C.) already alluded to, was supposed to afford a good example of the use of volcanic stones in the northern country, but the material of which it is made is probably alabaster. A basalt statue of this same king was however brought to light by the German excavations at Ashur some few years ago, while the capital of a column found on the same site, belonging possibly to the time of Tiglath-Pileser I, gives us an illustration of the use of hard stones for purely architectural purposes by the Assyrians. It is uncertain from what quarter they obtained these harder stones, but basalt and other igneous rocks may be quarried in the valleys of the streams that poured their waters into the Tigris and Euphrates, and in the valley of the Khabour Layard informs us that he discovered many extinct volcanoes. WOOD Assyria afforded a better supply of wood than Babylonia, the latter country being as poor in wood as it is in stone. The only trees from which beams sufficiently long to be of any use could be obtained, were the poplar and the palm tree. Wood being more perishable than either clay or stone, we naturally do not expect to find the same amount of material evidence of its usage; sufficient however has survived the ravages of time to establish the certainty of its usage in Mesopotamia as a building material from the earliest to the latest times. Thus for example at Nippur, Peters found charred beams of palm-wood which evidently had at one time formed the roof of the corridor in which it was discovered; pieces of tamarisk were in like manner found upon the brick threshold of a doorway, which probably represented all that remained of the doors and door-posts. Similarly at Lagash not far from Ur-Ninâ’s storehouse were found the charred remains of pillars made of cedar-wood, which doubtless at one time supported a portico made of the same material, while Ur-Ninâ himself records that he fetched wood from the mountains, as did his descendants of later days. In like manner the roof of a temple erected by Eannatum I a successor of Ur-Ninâ was constructed of cedar-wood. So too at Muḳeyyer (Ur), large quantities of charred wood were discovered,[55] while at Abû Shahrein (Eridu), the casement wall of the ziggurat is studded with square holes—three inches square, which are filled with wood.[56] After the establishment of Babylonian sovereignty over the land of Amurru, (i.e. Syria and Palestine) by Shar-Gâni-sharri and Narâm-Sin, the kings of Babylonia regularly obtained cedar-wood from the Lebanon, as did the early kings of Egypt. In a room at Nippur used apparently for storing unbaked tablets in the time of Gimil-Sin (_c._ 2350 B.C.) wooden shelves had