Note 659 — Chapter X · THE SWORD IN BABYLONIA, ASSYRIA AND PERSIA, AND ANCIENT INDIA.
Reading edition
That the Assyrians had books appears plainly from the inscriptions: ‘In the night-time bind round the sick man’s head a sentence taken from a good book’ (a soporific!). Parchment was most probably the first material (Trans. of Soc. Bib. Archæology, vols. ii. 55, and iii. 432); and the language proves that the papyrus-scroll (Duppu-ga-zu) was known.