Occasionally one tablet constituted a book, but more often several tablets were needed to contain the entire writing. Thus the Deluge Story is the eleventh tablet, or chapter, of a series numbering twelve in all. Seventy tablets composed a single work on astronomy, while the three books comprising the earliest religious texts covered 200 tablets. Each tablet was carefully numbered and known by the first line of the book; as, for example, one work treated on the creation and began: "Formerly that which is above was not yet called the heaven;" so the first tablet of the series was entitled: "Formerly that which is above, No. 1;" the second, "Formerly that which is above, No. 2," and so on through the entire series. [Illustration: MUSICIANS AND ATTENDANTS IN THE GARDEN OF ASSHURBANIPAL.] The ancient Chaldeans believed that literature and the art of writing were gifts from the gods, and in the myth which to them explained how knowledge came into the world, it was numbered among the things taught them by the Man-Fish, Oannes. This is the myth as Berosus told it: "There was originally at Babylonia a multitude of men of foreign race who had colonized Chaldea, and they lived without order, like animals. But in the first year (of the new order of things) there appeared from out the Persian Gulf where it borders upon Babylonia, an animal endowed with reason, who was called Oannes. The whole body of the animal was that of a fish, but under the fish's head he had another head, and also feet below, growing out of his fish's tail, similar to those of a man; also human speech, and his image is preserved to this day. This being used to spend the whole day amidst men, without taking any food, and he gave them an insight into letters, and sciences, and every kind of art; he taught them how to found cities, to construct temples, to introduce laws and to measure land; he showed them how to sow seeds and gather in crops; in short, he instructed them in everything that softens manners and makes up civilization, so that from that time no one has invented anything new. Then, when the sun went down, this monstrous Oannes used to plunge back into the sea and spend the night in the midst of the boundless waves, for he was amphibious." It was believed that learning and letters were under the special protection of the gods, and for this reason it was fitting to preserve books in the temples. The libraries thus established were cared for by scribes and were open to the public. Many were engaged constantly in copying, repairing and taking care of the tablets. An order of celibate priests, not unlike the monks of the Middle Ages, devoted itself to the task of book-making, regarding the work as a pious undertaking. Among the most ancient books recovered is one containing bits of folk-lore, popular songs and maxims. One of the maxims runs: "Like an oven that is old Against thy foes be hard and strong." A fragment of a ploughman's song says: