Note 350 — Chapter II · (continued 3)

Loftus thinks that the process was very common, at least in Lower Chaldæa. He found cones imbedded in mortar at several other points in the Warka ruins, but the example we have reproduced is the only one in which well-marked designs could still be clearly traced. Taylor saw cones of the same kind at Abou-Sharein. They had no inscriptions, and their bases were black (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xv. p. 411). They formed in all probability parts of a decoration similar to that described by Loftus. In Egypt we find cones of terra-cotta crowning the façades of certain Theban tombs (Rhind, Thebes, its Tombs and their Tenants, p. 136). Decoratively they seem allied to the cones of Warka, but the religious formulæ they bear connects them rather with the cones found by M. de Sarzec at Tello, which bear commemorative inscriptions. To these we shall return at a later page.