Possible Priority to Egyptian Pottery.--Similarity between Assyrian and Egyptian.--The Course followed by both Arts.--Unbaked Bricks.--Baked Bricks.--Writing Tablets.--Seals.--Vases.--Terra-cottas.--Porcelain.--Glazing and Enamelling.--Tin.--Colored Enamels.--Babylonian Bricks.--Glazes. [Illustration: Fig. 44.--Pottery found in the Tombs above the Palaces of Nimroud.] Although we have taken Egypt as our starting-point, there may have been a pottery antecedent to that we have considered. Looking farther east for the cradle of the human race, knowledge and art may have spread east and west from the Euphrates, the great river of Babylon. Egypt having been first inhabited by settlers wandering from the province of which that city became the capital, who found in the Nile a river resembling, in many respects, that which they had left, these colonists may have carried with them some knowledge of the uses of clay. However this may be, it is beyond question that the oldest pottery of which the age is known is Egyptian, and that the knowledge acquired from the East was returned with interest. [Illustration: Fig. 45.--Terra-cotta Assyrian Venus.] [Illustration: Fig. 46.--Assyrian Cylinder, inscribed with the Records of a King’s Reign. (British Museum.)] [Illustration: Fig. 47.--Inscribed Seal. (Assyrian.)] [Illustration: Fig. 48.--Seal of Sabaco and Sennacherib.] [Illustration: Fig. 49.--Impression of Sabaco’s Seal, enlarged.] [Illustration: Fig. 50.--Back of Assyrian Seal, showing Marks of Fingers.] [Illustration: Fig. 51.--Fragment in Porcelain (?). (Nimroud.)] [Illustration: Fig. 52.--Box in Porcelain (?). (Nimroud.)] [Illustration: Fig. 53.--Enamelled Brick. (Louvre.)]