The main landmarks in the later time of this civilization are the Elamite invasion of Kudur-nan-khundi (2280 B. C.) which upset the Semitic rulers, and the Assyrian invasion of Tiglath-Adar (1270 B. C.), after which interest centres in the Assyrian kingdom and its development of the Mesopotamian culture which it borrowed. The main buildings of the Assyrian kings were their enormous palaces, the mass of which was of unbaked bricks, faced with alabaster slabs; such were the works of Assurnazir-pal (Nimrud, 880 B. C.), Sargon (Khorsabad, 710 B. C.), Sennacherib and Assurbani-pal (Kouyunjik, 700 B. C.). The later, Assyrian, form of the civilization was to the earlier Chaldean much what Rome was to Greece, a rather clumsy borrower, who laboriously preserved the literature and art. Some of the Assyrian sculpture of animals is, however, perhaps unsurpassed for vivid action. The systematic libraries, containing copies of all the older literature for general study, were most creditable, though the Assyrian himself composed nothing better than chronicles. Nearly all that we possess of Babylonian religion, and much of the history, is in the copies scrupulously made from the ancient tablets by the Assyrian scribes, who noted every defect in the original with critical fidelity. The Mesopotamian civilization has left its mark on the modern world. Its religion greatly influenced Hebrew, and thence Christian, thought, the psalms, for instance, being a Babylonian form of piety. Its science fixed the signs of the zodiac, the months of the year, the days of the week, and the division of the circle in degrees, all of which are now universal. And its art, carried by the Phœnicians, was copied by the Greeks and Etruscans, and thus passed on into modern design. SYRIA