A Lecture On The Antiquity Of Laying Corner Stones With Religious And Mystical Ceremonies.*

I will remark that in Egypt and here the Masonic art to which I refer is the art of the stonecutter ancl stonemason in the construction and ornament of stone buildings . The mere working in clay , the unburnt or the burnt brick , ancl the mere quarry-working were performed iu E gypt by prisoners , captives , ancl slaves , under the cruel vigilance of skilled overseers . Our Craft hold the lofty position due to its artscienceskill and epitomized

know-, , ledge of geometry , mechanics , and mathematics . Contrast the Hebrews suffering in the plains by On in the clay-pits with what the records disclose of the high social relations of the stone-workers ; the cherished distinctions of the one with the groaning tyranny which drove the other class into the desert as fugitives , and the difference will at once be manifest .

ASSUR . IT appears from many of the inscriptions that both at Nineveh and at Bab ylon , the custom was to place under or at the four corners of public buildings a burnt clay tablet or cylinder , with inscriptions . This was called a " Timin , " and it was regarded with peculiar reverence , as the Hebrews regarded the corner stone . It was intended to remain for everand terrible imprecations

, were invoked on any succeeding King , who , finding it by any casualty , or exposing it , should not restore it to its former place . Thus in vol . i . of the " Records of the Past" is translated an inscription of Sennacherib ( page 30 ) , in which he states , " The timin of old timeshad not been forgotten , owing to the veneration of the people . " Again , at p . 29 , "The ancient timin of its palace , those of old time had stamped its clay with sacred

writing ancl repeated it in the companion tablets . " To these latter tablets I shall again recur . The inscription at Birs-Nimrocl , in the time of Nebuchadnezzar , who rebuilt the Temple of the Sun , ruinous from age , states : " Its site had not been disturbed , its timin had not been destroyed . " ( See vol . vii ., p . 77 . ) When an Assyrian king captured a town and destroyed it , he always seems

to have taken special pains to destroy its timin . Thus in an inscri ption of Sargon ( about 720 B . C . ) at Khorsabad is found , " I reduced Dur Iakin , the town of his power to ashes , I undermined and destroyed its ancient forts , I dug up the foundation stone , I made it like a thunder-stricken ruin . " The valley of the Euphrates was overflowed by freshets , and it was the custom of architects to erect a mound of considerable heiht and large surface

g , on which their imposing Temples ancl Palaces were erected , ancl protected from the consequences of freshets . There are some reasons to think that a timin may sometimes have been placed in the protecting foot-walls of such mounds . Fortunatel y , however , there is no doubt of its relation to the foundation and dedication of public buildings .

Discovery has been made in the ruins of the Temple of the Sun at Mugheir ( the Ur of the Chaldees ) of four cylinders inscribed with the sacred writing , one at each corner of the Temple , These are translated , vol . viii , p 143 of the " Records of the Past . "

They are of the time of Nabonidus , king of Bab ylon . He states that he rebuilt this Temple on its old timin . The king makes this invocation , also : " Like heaven may its foundation stand fast . " The " companion tablets" heretofore referred to were built into the foundations probably much as is now practised . A regular foundation-stone has been discovered at Khorsabadin the

, very interior part of the construction ; a large stone chest which enclosed several inscribed plates was dug up by M . Place in 1853 . This is the only extant specimen of the Assyrian f oun dation-stone . It is described in the " Records of the Past , " vol . xi ., p . 31 .