in fragments. In the house in Fara just mentioned there were a number of smaller ones in good condition embedded in the mud mortar between the courses of mud brick. It seems as though a certain reverence for written documents frequently led the Babylonians, the graphomaniacs of the ancient world, to cherish the specimens of their beloved art even after they were no longer needed and had to be put out of the way, for a later period unforeseen by them, when after thousands of years the lucky people of to-day can gain the information conveyed by them. [Illustration: FIG. 162.—Aramaic incantation bowl. ] The specimens of ceramics are so extremely numerous that we cannot attempt in this place to obtain even an approximate knowledge of them, and thus we can only occasionally point out the changes in form and ornamentation of the different periods. We include in the following observations some finds that occurred on other parts of the site. The small flattish bowls are innumerable, they have no brim or only a very simple one, and small inadequate bases (Fig. 161). They have often owner’s marks made of punctured rows of dots. The deeper round bowls have generally no base, and the walls of some of them are extremely thin. In the upper layers there lay Aramaic incantation bowls (Fig. 162) inscribed with signs resembling letters arranged in a spiral, and with rough drawings of men and of demons. When found undisturbed, the rims of two of them are placed together like a small double-urn coffin. Also birds’ eggs are found with fine Aramaic writing. The beakers are cylindrical or bell-shaped, with a poorly-worked base (Fig. 163), and the pointed vases are cylindrical or of cup form (Fig. 164). [Illustration: FIG. 163.—Beakers. ] [Illustration: FIG. 164.—Vases. ] Small vases have often a white glaze, some of them a yellow or a blue one, or a blue edge. Such vases occur as early as the old Kassite times, when they are also made of a coarse frit. The outline is globular, or like a calyx, or a reversed calyx. Here also the bases are small and very poor. The larger vases of coloured enamels, which we have already referred to (cf. Fig. 152), are completely rounded in profile. Their footless base is sometimes slightly rounded, and is added to the body at an angle. [Illustration: FIG. 165.—Storage jars, on ring stands below. ] [Illustration: FIG. 166.—Large storage jars. ]