But sometimes stones of comparative rarity, such as lapis lazuli, were employed as a material whereon to engrave inscriptions: thus a tablet made of that material and dedicated by Lugal-tarsi, an early king of Kish, to the god Anu and the goddess Ninni, is preserved in the British Museum, and in the course of the recent excavations at Babylon two bars of lapis lazuli with reliefs and both bearing cuneiform inscriptions were discovered. One of these showed the picture of a god standing up, surmounted with a feather crown, and holding the symbol of lightning in each hand, while his dress is decorated with three shields, and a cuneiform inscription of five lines is further added; on the other, a god in similar posture and dress but holding a staff and ring on his breast and grasping the tail of a double-horned dragon in his right hand is portrayed: the god’s girdle is decorated with figures, while on one of the three shields adorning the raiment, horses are depicted, and there is an accompanying inscription of eight lines. Metal in like manner was not exempt from being drawn into the service, the metals mostly employed being bronze and copper. Thus the female statuettes from Tellô all bear an inscription, Elamite or Babylonian as the case may be, the general purport of which is that the statuette is dedicated with a view to the preservation of the life of the donor: so too the colossal copper lance-head discovered on the same site bears a royal inscription, while the famous bronze gate-sheaths from Balâwât belonging to the time of Shalmaneser II, are perhaps the most familiar instance of cuneiform inscriptions engraved on bronze. Many bronze tablets of the Assyrian period have been found, and the well-known bronze doorstep of Nebuchadnezzar II provides us with another excellent example of an inscription engraved on metal. Moreover the more precious metals such as silver and gold were occasionally inscribed. Inscriptions on gold are very rare, but by no means unknown. M. de Sarzec for example found a plate of gold bearing a cuneiform inscription at Tellô, and a strip of gold bearing the name of the illustrious Narâm-Sin of Agade was brought to light in the course of the American excavations at Bismâya.