Neither paper nor any similar material had been invented.

Authors were therefore under the necessity of inscribing their compositions on massive bricks.

Some of these Babylonian records are still preserved in European museums; but the language in which they are written has never been deciphered.

Gomer Chephoraod was so popular that the clay of all the plains round the Euphrates could scarcely furnish brick-kilns enough for his eulogists.
It is recorded in particular that Pharonezzar, the Assyrian Pindar, published a bridge and four walls in his praise.
One day the king was going in state from his palace to the temple of Belus.

During this procession it was lawful for any Babylonian to offer any petition or suggestion to his sovereign.