No ancient author states that the Assyrians or the Babylonians used them.

Had it not been for one piece of indirect evidence, it would have seemed nearly certain that they were not employed by the Mesopotamian races.

In some of the royal palaces, however, small humps of fine clay have been found, bearing the impressions of seals, and exhibiting traces of the string by which they were attached to documents, while the documents themselves, being of a different material, have perished.

It seems probable that in these instances some substance like paper or parchment was used; and thus we are led to the conclusion that, while clay was the most common, and stone an ordinary writing material among the Assyrians, some third substance, probably Egyptian paper, was also known, and was used occasionally, though somewhat rarely, for public documents.
[Illustration: Partial PAGE 171] The number of characters is very great.

Sir H.Rawlinson, in the year 1851, published a list of 216, or, including variants, 366 characters, as occurring in the inscriptions known to him.