_The sacred tree of the Assyrians._--This he holds to be one of the oldest historic symbols; that it had its origin in Mesopotamia, one of the earliest civilized centers of the world. Beginning with its simplest form, the sacred tree grew into an ornate and highly complex pattern, invariably associated with religious subjects. Two living creatures always stand on either side, facing it and each other. First they were monsters, like winged bulls or griffins, and after became human or semihuman personages--priests or kings, usually in the attitude of devotion. The Count says the migration of both these types can be readily traced. The tree between the two monsters or animals passed from Mesopotamia to India, where it was employed by the Buddhists and Brahmins, and has continued in use in that country to the present time. It passed to the Phenicians, and from Asia Minor to Greece. From the Persians it was introduced to the Byzantines, and during the early ages, into Christian symbolism in Sicily and Italy, and even penetrated to the west of France. The other type--that is, the tree between two semi-human personages--followed the same route into India, China, and eastern Asia, and, being found in the ancient Mexican and Maya codices, it forms part of the evidence cited by the Count as a pre-Columbian communication between the Old World and the New. He argues this out by similarity of the details of attitude and expression of the human figure, the arrangement of the branches of the sacred tree, etc. _The sacred cone of Mesopotamia._--This was worshipped by the western Semites as their great goddess, under the image of a conical stone. Its figurative representation is found alike on monuments, amulets, and coins. On some Phenician monuments there is to be seen, super-added to the cone, a horizontal crossbar on the middle of which rests a handle. This shape bears a striking resemblance to the _Crux ansata_ (fig. 4), and, like it, was a symbol of life in its widest and most abstract meaning. The resemblance between them is supposed to have caused them to have been mistaken and employed one for the other in the same character of symbol and talisman. It is alleged that the Ephesian Artemis was but the sacred cone of Mesopotamia anthropomorphized, although, with the halo added to Artemis, the allegation of relationship has been made in respect of the _Crux ansata_. _The Crux ansata, the key of life._--This is probably more widely known in modern times than any other Egyptian symbol. Its hieroglyphic name is _Ankh_, and its signification is "to live." As an emblem of life, representing the male and female principle united, it is always borne in the hands of the gods, it is poured from a jar over the head of the king in a species of baptism, and it is laid symbolically on the lips of the mummy to revive it. From Egypt the _Crux ansata_ spread first among the Phenicians, and then throughout the whole Semitic world, from Sardinia to Susiana.