He went with me into a small low-ceiled room without windows, in which there was a large wooden chest, while scraps of agate and lapis lazuli lay scattered on the floor.

Here he addressed me as follows:-- "'The two fragments, which you have published separately upon pages 22 and 26, _belong together_'" (this amazing Assyrian priest spoke American!).

{20} "'They are not finger-rings, and their history is as follows:-- "'King Kurigalzu (about 1300 B.C.) once sent to the temple of Bel, among other articles of agate and lapis lazuli, an inscribed votive cylinder of agate.

Then the priests suddenly received the command to make for the statue of the god Nibib a pair of ear-rings of agate.

We were in great dismay, since there was no agate as raw material at hand.