If the best possible building material was thus plentiful in Assyria,

and its conveyance thus easy to manage, to what are we to ascribe the

decided preference shown for so inferior a substance as brick? No

considerable difficulty can have been experienced in quarrying the stone

of the country, which is seldom very hard, and which was, in fact, cut

by the Assyrians, whenever they had any sufficient motive for removing

or making use of it. One answer only can be reasonably given to the

question. The Assyrians had learnt a certain style of architecture in

the alluvial Babylonia, and having brought it with them into A country

far less fitted for it, maintained it from habit, not withstanding its

unsuitableness. In some few respects, indeed, they made a slight change.

The abundance of stone in the country induced them to substitute it in

several places where in Babylonia it was necessary to use burnt brick,

as in the facings of platforms and of temples, in dams across streams,

in pavements sometimes, and universally in the ornamentation of the

lover portions of palace and temple walls. But otherwise they remained

faithful to their architectural traditions, and raised in the

comparatively hilly Assyria the exact type of building which nature and

necessity had led them to invent and use in the flat and stoneless

alluvium where they had had their primitive abode. As platforms were

required both for security and for comfort in the lower region, they

retained them, instead of choosing natural elevations in the upper one.

As clay was the only possible material in the one place, clay was still

employed, notwithstanding the abundance of stone, in the other. Being

devoid of any great inventive genius, the Assyrians found it easier to

maintain and slightly modify a system with which they had been familiar

in their original country than to devise a new one more adapted to the

land of their adoption.

Next to the architecture of the Assyrians, their mimetic art seems to

deserve attention. Though the representations in the works of Layard and

Botta, combined with the presence of so many specimens in the great

national museums of London and Paris, have produced a general

familiarity with the subject, still, as a connected view of it in its

several stages and branches is up to the present time a desideratum in

our literature, it may not be superfluous here to attempt a brief

account of the different classes into which their productions in this

kind of art fall, and the different eras and styles under which they

naturally range themselves.

Assyrian mimetic art consists of statues, bas-reliefs, metal-castings,

carvings in ivory, statuettes in clay, enamellings on brick, and

intaglios on stones and gems.

[Illustration: PLATE 63]

Assyrian statues are comparatively rare, and, when they occur, are among

the least satisfactory of this people’s productions. They are coarse,

clumsy, purely formal in their design, and generally characterized by an

undue flatness, or want of breadth in the side view, as if they were

only intended to be seen directly in front. Sometimes, however, this

defect is not apparent. A sitting statue in black basalt, of the size of

life, representing an early king, which Mr. Layard discovered at

Kileh-Sherghat [PLATE LXIII, Fig. 1], and which is now in the British

Museum, may be instanced as quite free from this disproportion. It is

very observable, however, in another of the royal statues recently

recovered [PLATE LXIII, Fig. 2], as it is also in the monolith bulls

and lions universally. Otherwise, the proportions of the figures are

commonly correct. They bear a resemblance to the archaic Greek,

especially to that form of it which we find in the sculptures from

Branchidae. They have just the same rudeness, heaviness, and stiff

formality. It is difficult to judge of their execution, as they have

mostly suffered great injury from the hand of man, or from the weather;

but the royal statue here represented, which is in better preservation

than any other Assyrian work “in the round” that has come down to us,

exhibits a rather high finish. It is smaller than life, being about

three and a half feet high: the features are majestic, and well marked;

the hair and beard are elaborately curled; the arms and hands are well

shaped, and finished with care. The dress is fringed elaborately, and

descends to the ground, concealing all the lower part of the figure. The

only statues recovered besides these are two of the god Nebo, brought

from Nimrud, a mutilated one of Ishtar, or Astarte, found at Koyunjik

[PLATE LXIII., Fig. 3], and a tolerably perfect one of Sargon, which was

discovered at Idalium, in the island of Cyprus.

The clay statuettes of the Assyrians possess even less artistic merit

than their statues. They are chiefly images of gods or genii, and have

most commonly something grotesque in their appearance. Among the most

usual are figures which represent either Mylitta (Bettis), or Ishtar.

They are made in a fine terra cotta, which has turned of a pale red in

baking, and are colored with a cretaceous coating, so as greatly to

resemble Greek pottery. Another type is that of an old man, bearded, and

with hands clasped, which we may perhaps identify with Nebo, the

Assyrian Mercury, since his statues in the British Museum have a

somewhat similar character. Other forms are the fish-god Nin, or Nin-ip

[PLATE LXIV., Fig. 1]; and the deities, not yet identified, which were

found by M. Botta under the pavement-bricks at Khorsahad. [PLATE LXIV.,

Fig. 2.] These specimens have the formal character of the statues, and

are even more rudely shaped. Other examples, which carry the grotesque

to an excess, appear to have been designed with greater spirit and

freedom. Animal and human forms are sometimes intermixed in them; and

while it cannot be denied that they are rude and coarse, it must be

allowed, on the other hand, that they possess plenty of vigor. M. Botta

has engraved several specimens, including two which have the hind legs

and tail of a bull, with a human neck and arms, the head bearing the

usual horned cap.

[Illustration: PLATE 64]

Small figures of animals in terra cotta have also been found. They

consist chiefly of dogs and ducks. A representation of each has been

given in the chapter on the productions of Assyria. The dogs discovered

are made of a coarse clay, and seem to have been originally painted.

They are not wanting in spirit; but it detracts from their merit that

the limbs are merely in relief, the whole space below the belly of the

animal being filled up with a mass of clay for the sake of greater

strength. The ducks are of a fine yellow material, and represent the

bird asleep, with its head lying along its back.

Of all the Assyrian works of art which have come down to us, by far the

most important are the bas-reliefs. It is here especially, if not

solely, that we can trace progress in style; and it is here alone that

we see the real artistic genius of the people. What sculpture in its

full form, or in the slightly modified form of very high relief, was to

the Greeks, what painting has been to modern European nations since the

time of Cimabue, that low relief was to the Assyrians--the practical

mode in which artistic power found vent among them. They used it for

almost every purpose to which mimetic art is applicable; to express

their religious feelings and ideas, to glorify their kings, to hand down

to posterity the nation’s history and its deeds of prowess, to depict

home scenes and domestic occupations, to represent landscape and

architecture, to imitate animal and vegetable forms, even to illustrate

the mechanical methods which they employed in the construction of those

vast architectural works of which the reliefs were the principal

ornamentation. It is not too much to say that we know the Assyrians, not

merely artistically, but historically and ethnologically, _chiefly_

through their bas reliefs, which seem to represent to us almost the

entire life of the people.

The reliefs may be divided under five principal heads:--1, War scenes,

including battles, sieges, devastations of an enemy’s country, naval

expeditions, and triumphant returns from foreign war, with the trophies

and fruits of victory; 2. Religious scenes, either mythical or real; 3.

Processions generally of tribute-bearers, bringing the produce of their

several countries to the Great King; 4. hunting and sporting scenes,

including the chase of savage animals, and of animals sought for food,

the spreading of nets, the shooting of birds, and the like; and 5.

Scenes of ordinary life, as those representing the transport and

erection of colossal bulls, landscapes, temples, interiors, gardens,

etc.

The earliest art is that of the most ancient palaces at Nimrud. It

belongs to the latter part of the tenth century before our era; the time

of Asa in Judaea, of Omri and Ahab in Samaria, and of the Sheshonks in

Egypt. It is characterized by much spirit and variety in the design, by

strength and firmness, combined with a good deal of heaviness, in the

execution, by an entire contempt for perspective, and by the rigid

preservation in almost every case, both human and animal, of the exact

profile both of figure and face. Of the illustrations already given in

the present volume a considerable number belong to this period. The

heads [PLATE XXXIII.], and the figures [PLATE XXXV.], represent the

ordinary appearance of the men, while animal forms of the time will be

found in the lion [PLATE XXV.], the ibex [PLATE XXV.], the gazelle

[PLATE XXVII.], the horse [PLATE XXXI.], and the horse and wild bull

[PLATE XXVIII.] It will be seen upon reference that the animal are very

much superior to the human forms, a characteristic which is not,

however, peculiar to the style of this period, but belongs to all

Assyrian art, from its earliest to its latest stage. A favorable

specimen of the style will be found in the lion-hunt which Mr. Layard

has engraved in his “Monuments,” and of which he himself observes, that

it is “one of the finest specimens hitherto discovered of Assyrian

sculpture.” in [PLATE LXIV., Fig. 3.] The composition is at once simple

and effective. The king forms the principal object, nearly in the centre

of the picture, and by the superior height of his conical head-dress,

and the position of the two arrows which he holds in the hand that draws

the bow-string, dominates over the entire composition. As he turns round

to shoot down at the lion which assails him from behind, his body is

naturally and gracefully bent, while his charioteer, being engaged in

urging his horses forward, leans naturally in the opposite direction,

thus contrasting with the main figure and balancing it. The lion

immediately behind the chariot is outlined with great spirit and

freedom; his head is masterly; the fillings up of the body, however,

have too much conventionality. As he rises to attack the monarch, he

conducts the eye up to the main figure, while at the same time by this

attitude his principal lines form a pleasing contrast to the predominant

perpendicular and horizontal lines of the general composition. The dead

lion in front of the chariot balances the living one behind it, and,

with its crouching attitude, and drooping head and tail, contrasts

admirably with the upreared form of its fellow. Two attendants, armed

with sword and shield, following behind the living lion, serve to

balance the horses drawing the chariot, without rendering the

composition too symmetrical. The horses themselves are the weakest part

of the picture; the forelegs are stiff and too slight, and the heads

possess little spirit.

It is seldom that designs of this early period can boast nearly so much

merit. The religious and processional pieces are stiff in the extreme;

the battle scenes are overcrowded and confused; the hunting’ scenes are

superior to these, but in general they too fall far below the level of

the above-described composition.

[Illustration: PLATE 65]

The best drawing of this period is found in the figures forming the

patterns or embroidery of dresses. The gazelle, the ibex, the horse, and

the horseman hunting the wild bull of which representations have been

given, are from ornamental work of this kind. They are favorable

specimens perhaps; but, still, they are representative of a considerable

class. Some examples even exceed these in the freedom of their outline,

and the vigorous action which they depict, as, for instance, the man

seizing a wild bull by the horn and foreleg, which is figured. [PLATE

LXV., Fig. 1.] In general, however, there is a tendency in these early

drawings to the grotesque. Lions and bulls appear in absurd attitudes;

hawk-headed figures in petticoats threaten human-headed lions with a

mace or a strap, sometimes holding them by a paw, sometimes grasping

then round the middle of the tail [PLATE LXV. Fig. 2]; priests hold up

ibexes at arm’s length by one of their hindlegs, so that their heads

trail upon the ground; griffins claw after antelopes, or antelopes toy

with winged lions; even in the hunting scenes, which are less simply

ludicrous, there seems to be an occasional striving after strange and

laughable attitudes, as when a stricken bull tumbles upon his head, with

his tail tossed straight in the air [PLATE LXV., Fig. 31], or when a

lion receives his death-wound with arms outspread, and mouth wildly

agape. [PLATE LXVI., Fig. 2.]

[Illustration: PLATE 66]

The second period of Assyrian mimetic art extends from the latter part

of the eighth to nearly the middle of the seventh century before our

era; or, more exactly, from about B.C. 721 to B.C. 667. It belongs to

the reigns of the three consecutive kings--Sargon, Sennacherib, and

Esar-haddon, who were contemporary with Hezekiah and Manasseh in Judaea,

and with the Sabacos (Shebeks) and Tirhakah (Tehiak) in Egypt. The

sources which chiefly illustrate this period are the magnificent series

of engravings published by MM. Flandin and Botta, together with the

originals of a certain portion of them in the Louvre; the engravings in

Mr. Layard’s first folio work, from plate 68 to 83; those in his second

folio work from plate 7 to 44, and from plate 50 to 56; the originals of

many of these in the British Museum; several monuments procured for the

British Museum by Mr. Loftus; and a series of unpublished drawings by

Mr. Boutcher in the same great national collection.

The most obvious characteristic of this period, when we compare it with

the preceding one, is the advance which the artists have made in their

vegetable forms, and the pre-Raphaelite accuracy which they affect in

all the accessories of their representations. In the bas-reliefs of the

first period we have for the most part no backgrounds. Figures alone

occupy the slabs, or figures and buildings. In some few instances water

is represented in a very rude fashion; and once or twice only do we meet

with trees, which, when they occur, are of the poorest and strangest

character. (See [PLATE LXVI., Fig. 1.]) In the second period, on the

contrary, backgrounds are the rule, and slabs without them form the

exception. The vegetable forms are abundant and varied, though still

somewhat too conventional. Date-palms, firs, and vines are delineated

with skill and spirit; other varieties are more difficult to recognize.

[PLATE LXVI., Fig. 3.] The character of the countries through which

armies march is almost always given--their streams, lakes, and rivers,

their hills and mountains, their trees, and in the case of marshy

districts, their tall reeds. At the same time, animals in the wild state

are freely introduced without their having any bearing on the general

subject of the picture. The water teems with fish, and, where the sea is

represented, with crabs, turtle, star-fish, sea-serpents, and other

monsters. The woods are alive with birds; wild swine and stags people

the marshes. Nature is evidently more and more studied; and the artist

takes a delight in adorning the scenes of violence, which he is forced

to depict, with quiet touches of a gentle character--rustics fishing or

irrigating their grounds, fish disporting themselves, birds flying from

tree to tree, or watching the callow young which look up to them from

the nest for protection.

In regard to human forms, no great advance marks this period. A larger

variety in their attitudes is indeed to be traced, and a greater energy

and life appears in most of the figures; but there is still much the

same heaviness of outline, the same over-muscularity, and the same

general clumsiness and want of grace. Animal forms show a much more

considerable improvement. Horses are excellently portrayed, the

attitudes being varied, and the heads especially delineated with great

spirit. Mules and camels are well expressed, but have scarcely the vigor

of the horses. Horned cattle, as oxen, both with and without humps,

goats, and sheep are very skilfully treated, being represented with much

character, in natural yet varied attitudes, and often admirably grouped.

[Illustration: PLATE 67]

[Illustration: PLATE 68]

The composition during this period is more complicated and more

ambitious than during the preceding one; but it may be questioned

whether it is so effective. No single scene of the time can compare for

grandeur with the lion-hunt above described. The battles and siege are

spirited, but want unity; the hunting scenes are comparatively tame; the

representations of the transport of colossal bulls possess more interest

than artistic merit. On the other hand, the manipulation is decidedly

superior; the relief is higher, the outline is more flowing, the finish

of the features more delicate. What is lost in grandeur of composition

is, on the whole, more than made up by variety, naturalness, improved

handling, and higher finish.

The highest perfection of Assyrian art is in the third period, which

extends from B.C. 667 to about B.C. 640. It synchronizes with the reign

of Asshur-bani-pal, the son of Essarhaddon, who appears to have been

contemporary with Gyges in Lydia, and with Psammetichus in Egypt. The

characteristics of the time are a less conventional type in the

vegetable forms, a wonderful freedom spirit, and variety in the forms of

animals, extreme minuteness and finish in the human figures, and a

delicacy in the handling considerably beyond that of even the second or

middle period. The sources illustrative of this stage of the art consist

of the plates in Mr. Layard’s “Second Series of Monuments,” from plate

45 to 49, the originals of these in the British Museum, the noble series

of slabs obtained by Mr. Loftus from the northern palace of Koyunjik,

and of the drawings made from them, and from other slabs, which were in

a more damaged condition by Mr. Boutcher, who accompanied Mr. Loftus in

the capacity of artist.

Vegetable forms are, on the whole, somewhat rare. The artists have

relinquished the design of representing scenes with perfect

truthfulness, and have recurred as a general rule to the plain

backgrounds of the first period. This is particularly the case in the

hunting scenes, which are seldom accompanied by any landscape

whatsoever. In processional and military scenes landscape is introduced,

but sparingly; the forms, for the most part, resembling those of the

second period. Now and then, however, in such scenes the landscape has

been made the object of special attention, becoming the prominent part,

while the human figures are accessories. It is here that an advance in

art is particularly discernible. In one set of slabs a garden seems to

be represented. Vines are trained upon trees, which may be either firs

or cypresses, winding elegantly around their stems, and on either side

letting fall their pendent branches laden with fruit. [PLATE LXVIII..

Fig. 2.] Leaves. branches, and tendrils are delineated with equal truth

and finish, a most pleasing and graceful effect being thereby produced.

Irregularly among the trees occur groups of lilies, some in bud, some in

full blow, all natural, graceful, and spirited. [PLATE LXIX., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE 69]

[Illustration: PLATE 70]

It is difficult to do justice to the animal delineation of this period.

without reproducing before the eye of the reader the entire series of

reliefs and drawings which belong to it. It is the infinite variety in

the attitudes, even more than the truth and naturalness of any

particular specimens, that impresses us as we contemplate the series.

Lions, wild asses, dogs, deer, wild goats, horses, are represented in

profusion: and we scarcely find a single form which is repeated. Some

specimens have been already given, as the hunted stag and hind [PLATE

XXVII.] and the startled wild ass [PLATE XXVI.] Others will occur among

the illustrations of the next chapter. For the present it may suffice to

draw attention to the spirit of the two falling asses in the

illustration [PLATE LXIX., Fig. 3], and of the crouching lion in the

illustration [PLATE LXIX., Fig. 2]; to the lifelike force of both ass and

hounds in the representation [PLATE LXX., Fig. 1], and here particularly

to the bold drawing of one of the dogs’ heads in full, instead of in

profile--a novelty now first occurring in the bas-reliefs. As instances

of still bolder attempts at unusual attitudes, and at the same time of a

certain amount of foreshortening, two further illustrations are

appended. The sorely wounded lion in the first [PLATE LXX., Fig. 2]

turns his head piteously towards the cruel shaft, while he totters to

his fall, his limbs failing him, and his eyes beginning to close. The

more slightly stricken king of beasts in the second [PLATE LXXI.], urged

to fury by the smart of his wound, rushes at the chariot whence the

shaft was sped, and in his mad agony springs upon a wheel, clutches it

with his two fore-paws, and frantically grinds it between his teeth.

Assyrian art, so far as is yet known, has no finer specimen of animal

drawing than this head, which may challenge comparison with anything of

the kind that either classic or modern art has produced.

[Illustration: PLATE 71]

[Illustration: PLATE 72]

As a specimen at once of animal vigor and of the delicacy and finish of

the workmanship in the human forms of the time, a bas-relief of the king

receiving the spring of a lion, and shooting an arrow into his mouth,

while a second lion advances at a rapid pace a little behind the first,

may be adduced. (See [PLATE LXXII.]) The boldness of the composition,

which represents the first lion actually in mid-air, is remarkable; the

drawing of the brute’s fore-paws, expanded to seize his intended prey,

is lifelike and very spirited, while the head is massive and full of

vigor. There is something noble in the calmness of the monarch

contrasted with the comparative eagerness of the attendant, who

stretches forward with shield and spear to protect has master from

destruction, if the arrow fails. The head of the king is, unfortunately,

injured; but the remainder of the figure is perfect and here, in the

elaborate ornamentation of the whole dress, we have an example of the

careful finish of the time--a finish, which is so light and delicate

that it does not interfere with the general effect, being scarcely

visible at a few yards’ distance.

[Illustration: PLATE 73]

The faults which still remain in this best period of Assyrian art are

heaviness and stiffness of outline in the human forms; a want of

expression in the faces, and of variety and animation in the attitudes;

and an almost complete disregard of perspective. If the worst of these

faults are anywhere overcome, it would seem to be in the land lion-hunt,

from which the noble head represented below is taken; and in the

river-hunt of the same, beast, found on a slab too much injured to be

re-moved, of which a representation is given. [PLATE LXXIII.] From what

appears to have remained of the four figures towards the prow of the

boat, we may conclude that there was a good deal of animation here. The

drawing must certainly have been less stiff than usual; and if there is

not much variety in the attitudes of the three spearmen in front, at any

rate those attitudes contrast well, both with the stillness of the

unengaged attendants in the rear, and with the animated but very

different attitude of the king.

Before the subject of Assyrian sculpture is dismissed, it is necessary

to touch the question whether the Assyrians applied color to statuary,

and, if so, in what way and to what extent. Did they, like the

Egyptians, cover the whole surface of the stone with a layer of stucco,

and then paint the sculptured parts with strong colors--red, blue,

yellow, white, and black? Or did they, like the Greeks, apply paint to

certain portions of their sculptures only, as the hair, eyes, beard and

draperies? Or finally, did they simply leave the stone in its natural

condition, like the Italians and the modern sculptors generally?

The present appearance of the sculptures is most in accordance with the

last of these three theories, or at any rate with that theory very

slightly modified by the second. The slabs now offer only the faintest

and most occasional traces of color. The evidence, however, of the

original explorers is distinct, that _at the time of discovery_ these

traces were very much more abundant. Mr. Layard observed color at Nimrud

on the hair, beard, and eyes of the figures, on the sandals and the

bows, on the tongues of the eagle-headed mythological emblems, on a

garland round the head of a winged priest(?), and on the representation

of fire in the bas-relief of a siege. At Khorsabad, MM. Botta and

Flandin found paint on the fringes of draperies, on fillets, on the

mitre of the king, on the flowers carried by the winged figures, on bows

and spearshafts, on the harness of the horses, on the chariots, on the

sandals, on the birds, and sometimes on the trees. The torches used to

fire cities, and the flames of the cities themselves, were invariably

colored red. M. Flandin also believed that he could detect, in some

instances, a faint trace of yellow ochre on the flesh and on the

background of bas-reliefs, whence he concluded that this tint was spread

over every part not otherwise colored.

It is evident, therefore, that the theory of an absence of color, or of

a very rare use of it, must be set aside. Indeed, as it is certain that

the upper portions of the palace walls, both inside and outside, were

patterned with colored bricks, covering the whole space above the slabs,

it must be allowed to be extremely improbable that at a particular line

color would suddenly and totally cease. The laws of decorative harmony

forbid such abrupt transitions; and to these laws all nations with any

taste instinctively and unwittingly conform. The Assyrian reliefs were

therefore, we may be sure, to some extent colored. The real question is,

to what extent in the Egyptian or in the classical style?

In Mr. Layard’s first series of “Monuments,” a preference was expressed

for what may be called the Egyptian theory. In the Frontispiece of that

work, and in the second Plate, containing the restoration of a palace

interior, the entire bas-reliefs were represented as strongly colored. A

jet-black was assigned to the hair and beards of men and of all

human-headed figures, to the manes and tails of horses, to vultures,

eagle heads, and the like: a coarse red-brown to winged lions, to human

flesh, to horses’ bodies, and to various ornaments, a deep yellow to

common lions, to chariot wheels, quivers, fringes, belts, sandals, and

other portions of human apparel; white to robes, helmets, shields.

tunic’s, towns, trees, etc.; and a dull blue to some of the feathers of

winged lions and genii, and to large portions of the ground from which

the sculptures stood out. This conception of Assyrian coloring, framed

confessedly on the assumption of a close analogy between the

ornamentation of Assyria and that of Egypt, was at once accepted by the

unlearned, and naturally enough was adopted by most of those who sought

to popularize the new knowledge among their countrymen. Hence the

strange travesties of Assyrian art which have been seen in so-called

“Assyrian Courts,” where all the delicacy of the real sculpture has

disappeared, and the spectator has been revolted by grim figures of

bulls and lions, from which a thick layer of coarse paint has taken away

all dignity, and by reliefs which, from the same cause, have lost all

spirit and refinement.

It is sufficient objection to the theory here treated of, that it has no

solid basis of fact to rest upon. Color has only been _found_ on

portions of the bas-reliefs, as on the hair and beards of men, on

head-ornaments, to a small extent on draperies, on the harness of

horses, on sandals, weapons, birds, flowers, and the like. Neither the

flesh of men, nor the bodies of animals, nor the draperies generally,

nor the backgrounds (except perhaps at Khorsabad), present the slightest

appearance of having been touched by paint. It is inconceivable that, if

these portions of the sculptures were universally or even ordinarily

colored, the color should have so entirely disappeared in every

instance. It is moreover inconceivable that the sculptor, if he knew his

work was about to be concealed beneath a coating of paint, should have

cared to give it the delicate elaboration which is found at any rate in

the later examples. All leads to the conclusion that in Assyrian as in

classical sculpture, color was sparingly applied, being confined to such

parts as the hair, eyes, and beards of men, to the fringes of dresses,

to horse trappings, and other accessory parts of the representations. In

this way the lower part of the wall was made to harmonize sufficiently

with the upper portion, which was wholly colored, but chiefly with pale

hues. At the same time a greater distinctness was given to the scenes

represented upon the sculptured slabs, the color being judiciously

applied to disentangle human from animal figures, dress from flesh, or

human figures from one another.

The colors actually found upon the bas-reliefs are four only--red, blue,

black, and white. The red is a good bright tint, far exceeding in

brilliancy that of Egypt. On the sculptures of Khorsabad it approaches

to vermilion, while on those of Nimrud it inclines to a crimson or a

lake tint. It is found alternating with the natural stone on the royal

parasol and mitre; with blue on the crests of helmets, the trappings of

horses, on flowers, sandals, and on fillets; and besides, it occurs,

unaccompanied by any other color, on the stems and branches of trees, on

the claws of birds, the shafts of spears and arrows, bows, belts,

fillets, quivers, maces, reins, sandals, flowers, and the fringe of

dresses. It is uncertain whence the coloring matter was derived; perhaps

the substance used was the suboxide of copper, with which the Assyrians

are known to have colored their red glass.

The blue of the Assyrian monuments is an oxide of copper, sometimes

containing also a trace of lead. Besides occurring in combination with

red in the cases already mentioned, it was employed to color the foliage

of trees, the plumage of birds, the heads of arrows, and sometimes

quivers, and sandals.

White occurs very rarely indeed upon the sculptures. At Khorsabad it was

not found of all; at Nimrud it was confined to the inner part of the eye

on either side of the pupil, and in this position it occurred only on

the colossal lions and bulls, and a very few other figures. On bricks

and pottery it was frequent, and their (sp.) it is found to have been

derived from tin; but it is uncertain whether the white of the

sculptures was not derived from a commoner material.

Black is applied in the sculptures chiefly to the hair, beards, and

eyebrows of men. It was also used to color the eyeballs not only of men,

but also of the colossal lions and bulls. Sometimes, when the eyeball

was thus marked, a line of black was further carried round the inner

edge of both the upper and the lower eyelid. In one place black bars

have been introduced to ornament an antelope’s horns. On the older

sculptures black was also the common color for sandals, which however

were then edged with red. The composition of the black is uncertain.

Browns upon the enamelled bricks are found to have been derived from,

iron; but Mr. Layard believes the black upon the sculptures to have

been, like the Egyptian, a bone black mixed with a little gum.

The ornamental metallurgy of the Assyrians deserves attention next to

their sculpture. It is of three kinds, consisting, in the first place,

of entire figures, or parts of figures, cast in a solid shape; secondly,

of castings in a low relief; and thirdly, of embossed work wrought

mainly with the hammer, but finished by a sparing use of the graving

tool.

[Illustration: PLATE 74]

The solid castings are comparatively rare, and represented none but

animal forms. Lions, which seem to have been used as weights, occur most

frequently, [PLATE LXXIV., Fig. 1.] None are of any great size; nor have

we any evidence that the Assyrians could cast large masses of metal.

They seem to have used castings, not (as the Greeks and the moderns) for

the greater works of art, but only for the smaller. The forms of the few

casts which have come down to us are good, and are free from the

narrowness which characterizes the representations in stone.

Castings in a low relief formed the ornamentation of thrones [PLATE

LXXIV., Figs. 2, 3], stools, and sometimes probably of chariots. They

consisted of animal and human figures, winged deities, griffins, and the

like. The castings were chiefly in open-work, and were attached to the

furniture which they ornamented by means of small nails. They have no

peculiar merit, being merely repetitions of the forms with which we are

familiar from their occurrence on embroidered dresses and on the

cylinders.

[Illustration: PLATE 75]

The embossed work of the Assyrians is the most curious and the most

artistic portion of their metallurgy. Sometimes it consisted of mere

heads and feet of animals, hammered into shape upon a model composed of

clay mixed with bitumen. [PLATE LXXV., Figs. 1, 2.] Sometimes it

extended to entire figures, as (probably) in the case of the lions

clasping each other, so common at the ends of sword-sheaths (see [PLATE

LXXV., Fig. 3]), the human figures which ornament the sides of chairs or

stools, and the like. [PLATE. LXXV., Fig. 3.] Occasionally it was of a

less solid but at the same time of a more elaborate character. In a

palace inhabited by Sargon at Nimrud, and in close juxtaposition with a

monument certainly of his time, were discovered by Mr. Layard a number

of dishes, plates, and bowls, embossed with great taste and skill, which

are among the most elegant specimens of Assyrian art discovered during

the recent researches. Upon these were represented sometimes hunting

scenes, sometimes combats between griffins and lions, or between men and

lions, sometimes landscapes with trees and figures of animals, sometimes

mere rows of animals following one another. One or two representations

from these bowls have been already given. They usually contain a star or

scarab in the centre, beyond which is a series of bands or borders,

patterned most commonly with figures. [PLATE LXXVI., Fig 1.] It is

impossible to give an adequate idea of the delicacy and spirit of the

drawings, or of the variety and elegance of the other patterns, in a

work of moderate dimensions like the present. Mr. Layard, in his Second

Series of “Monuments,” has done justice to the subject by pictorial

representation, while in his “Nineveh and Babylon” he has described the

more important of the vessels separately. The curious student will do

well to consult these two works, after which he may examine with

advantage the originals in the British Museum.

[Illustration: PLATE 76]

One of the most remarkable features observable in this whole series of

monuments, is its semi-Egyptian character. The occurrence of the scarab

has been just noticed. It appears on the bowls frequently, as do

sphinxes of an Egyptian type; while sometimes heads and head-dresses

purely Egyptian are found, as in [PLATE LXXVI., Fig. 2], which are

well-known forms, and have nothing Assyrian about them and in one or two

instances we meet with hieroglyphics, the _onk_ (or symbol of life),

[Illustration: _onk_ on page 223]

the ibis, etc. These facts may seem at first sight to raise a great

question namely, whether, afterall, the art of the Assyrians was really

of home growth, or was not rather imported from the Egyptians, either

directly or by way of Phoenicia. Such a view has been sometimes taken;

but the most cursory study of the Assyrian remains _in chronological

order_, is sufficient to disprove the theory, since it will at once show

that the earliest specimens of Assyrian art are the most un-Egyptian in

character. No doubt there are certain analogies even here, as the

preference for the profile, the stiffness and formality, the ignorance

or disregard of perspective, and the like; but the analogies are exactly

such as would be tolerably sure to occur in the early efforts of any two

races not very dissimilar to one another, while the little resemblances

which alone prove connection, are entirely wanting. These do not appear

until we come to monuments which belong to the time of Sargon, when

direct connection between Egypt and Assyria seems to have begun, and

Egyptian captives are known to have been transported into Mesopotamia in

large numbers. It has been suggested that the entire series of Nimrud

vessels is Phoenician, and that they were either carried off as spoil

from Tyre and other Phoenician towns, or else were the workmanship of

Phoenician captives removed into Assyria from their own country. The

Sidonians and their kindred were, it is remarked, the most renowned

workers in metal of the ancient world, and their intermediate position

between Egypt and Assyria may, it is suggested, have been the cause of

the existence among them of a mixed art, half Assyrian, half Egyptian.

The theory is plausible; but upon the whole it seems mere consonant with

all the facts to regard the series in question as in reality Assyrian,

modified from the ordinary style by an influence derived from Egypt.

Either Egyptian artificers--captives probably--may have wrought the

bowls after Assyrian models, and have accidentally varied the common

forms, more or less, in the direction which was natural to them from old

habits; or Assyrian artificers, acquainted with the art of Egypt, and

anxious to improve their own from it, may have consciously adopted

certain details from the rival country. The workmanship, subjects, and

mode of treatment, are all, it is granted, “more Assyrian than

Egyptian,” the Assyrian character being decidedly more marked than in

the case of the ivories which will be presently considered; yet even in

that case the legitimate conclusions seems to be that the specimens are

to be regarded as native Assyrian, but as produced abnormally, under a

strong foreign influence.

The usual material of the Assyrian ornamental metallurgy is bronze,

composed of one part of tin to ten of copper which are exactly the

proportions considered to be best by the Greeks and Romans, and still in

ordinary use at the present day. In some instances, where more than

common strength was required, as in the legs of tripods and tables, the

bronze was ingeniously cast over an inner structure of iron. This

practice was unknown to modern metallurgists until the discovery of the

Assyrian specimens, from which it has been successfully imitated.

We may presume that, besides bronze, the Assyrians used, to a certain

extent, silver and gold as materials for ornamental metal-work. The

earrings, bracelets, and armlets worn by the kings and the great

officers of state were probably of the more valuable metal, while the

similar ornaments worn by those of minor may have been of silver. [PLATE

LXXVI., Fig. 3.] One solitary specimen only of either class has been

found; but Mr. Layard discovered several moulds, with tasteful designs

for earrings, both at Nimrud and at Koyunjik; and the sculptures show

that both in these and the other personal ornaments a good deal of

artistic excellence was exhibited. The earrings are frequent in the form

of a cross, and are sometimes delicately chased. The armlets and

bracelets generally terminate in the heads of rams or bulls, which seem

to have been rendered with spirit and taste.

[Illustration: PLATE 77]

[Illustration: PLATE 78]

By one or two instances it appears that the Assyrians knew how to inlay

one metal with another. [PLATE LXXVI, Fig. 5.] The specimens discovered

are scarcely of an artistic character, being merely winged scarabaei,

outlined in gold on a bronze ground [PLATE LXXVI., Fig. 4.] The work,

however, is delicate, and the form very much more true to nature than

that which prevailed in Egypt.

The ivories of the Assyrians are inferior both to their metal castings

and to their bas-reliefs. They consist almost entirely of a single

series, discovered by Mr. Layard in a chamber of the North-West Palace

at Nimrud, in the near vicinity of slabs on which was engraved the name

of Sargon. The most remarkable point connected with them is the

thoroughly Egyptian character of the greater number which at first sight

have almost the appearance of being importations from the valley of the

Nile. Egyptian profiles, head-dresses, fashions of dressing the hair,

ornaments, attitudes, meet us at every turn; while sometimes we find the

representations of Egyptian gods, and in two cases hieroglyphics within

cartouches. (See [PLATE LXXVIII.]) A few specimens only are of a

distinctly Assyrian type, as a fragment of a panel, figured by Mr.

Layard [PLATE LXXVII., Fig. 1], and one or two others, in which the

guilloche border appears. These carvings are usually mere low reliefs,

occupying small panels or tablets, which were mortised or glued to the

woodwork of furniture. They were sometimes inlaid in parts with blue

grass, or with blue and green pastes let into the ivory, and at the same

time decorated with gilding. Now and then the relief is tolerably high,

and presents fragments of forms which seem to have had some artistic

merit. The best of these is the fore part of a lion walking among reeds

(p. 373), which presents analogies with the early art of Asia Minor.

[PLATE LXXVII., Fig. 3.] One or two stags’ heads have likewise been

found, designed and wrought with much spirit and delicacy. [PLATE

LXXVII., Fig. 3.] It is remarked that several of the specimens show not

only a considerable acquaintance with art, but also an intimate

knowledge of the method of working in ivory. One head of a lion was “of

singular beauty,” but unfortunately it fell to pieces at the very moment

of discovery.

It is possible that some of the objects here described may be actual

specimens of Egyptian art, sent to Sargon as tribute or presents, or

else carried off as plunder in his Egyptian expedition. The appearance,

however, which even the most Egyptian of them present, on a close

examination, is rather that of Assyrian works imitated from Egyptian

models than of genuine Egyptian productions. For instance, in the tablet

figured on the page opposite, where we see hieroglyphics within a

cartouche, the _onk_ or symbol of life, the solar disk, the double

ostrich-plume, the long hair-dress called _namms_, and the _tam_ or

_kukupha_ sceptre, all unmistakable Egyptian features--we observe a

style of drapery which is quite unknown in Egypt, while in several

respects it is Assyrian, or at least Mesopotamian. It is scanty, like

that of all Assyrian robed figures; striped, like the draperies of the

Chaldaeans and Babylonians: fringed with a broad fringe elaborately

colored, as Assyrian fringes are known to have been, and it has large

hanging sleeves also fringed, a fashion which appears once or twice upon

the Nimrud sculptures. [PLATE LXXVII, Fig. 4.] But if this specimen,

notwithstanding its numerous and striking Egyptian features, is rightly

regarded as Mesopotamian, it would seem to follow that the rest of the

series must still more decidedly be assigned to native genius.

[Illustration: PLATE 79]

The enamelled bricks of the Assyrians are among the most interesting

remains of their art. It is from these bricks alone that we are able to

judge at all fully of their knowledge and ideas with respect to color;

and it is from them also chiefly that an analysis has been made of the

coloring materials employed by the Assyrian artists. The bricks may be

divided into two classes--those which are merely patterned, and those

which contain designs representing men and animals. The patterned bricks

have nothing about them which is very remarkable. They present the usual

guilloches, rosettes, bands, scrolls, etc., such as are found in the

painted chambers and in the ornaments on dresses, varied with

geometrical figures, as circles, hexagons, octagons, and the like; and

sometimes with a sort of arcade-work, which is curious, if not very

beautiful. [PLATE LXXIX., Fig. 1.] The colors chiefly used in the

patterns are pale green, pale yellow, dark brown, and white. Now and

then an intense blue and a bright red occur, generally together; but

these positive hues are rare, and the taste of the Assyrians seems to

have led them to prefer, for their patterned walls, pale and dull hues.

The same preference appears, even more strikingly, in the bricks on

which designs are represented. There the tints almost exclusively used

are pale yellow, pale greenish blue, olive green, white, and a brownish

black. It is suggested that the colors have faded, but of this there is

no evidence. The Assyrians, when they used the primitive hues, seem,

except in the case of red, to have employed subdued tints of them, and

red they appear to have introduced very sparingly. Olive-green they

affected for grounds, and they occasionally used other half-tints. A

pale orange and a delicate lilac or pale purple were found at Khorsabad,

while brown (as already observed) is far more common on the bricks than

black. Thus the general tone of their coloring is quiet, not to say

sombre. There is no striving after brilliant effects. The Assyrian

artist seeks to please by the elegance of his forms and the harmony of

his hues, not to startle by a display of bright and strongly-contrasted

colors. The tints used in a single composition vary from three to five,

which latter number they seem never to exceed. The following are the

combinations of five hues which occur: brown, green, blue, dark yellow,

and pale yellow; orange, lilac, white, yellow, and olive-green.

Combinations of four hues are much more common: e.q., red, white,

yellow, and black; deep yellow, brown lilac, white, and pale yellow;

lilac, yellow, white, and green; yellow, blue, white, and brown, and

yellow, blue, white, and olive-green. Sometimes the tints are as few as

three, the ground in these cases being generally of a hue used also in

the figures. Thus we have yellow, blue, and white on a blue ground and

again the same colors on a yellow ground. We have also the simple

combinations of white and yellow on a blue ground, and of white and

yellow on an olive-green ground.

In every ease there is at harmony in the coloring. We find no harsh

contrasts. Either the tones are all subdued, or if any are intense and

positive, then all (or almost all) are so. Intense red occurs in two

fragments of patterned bricks found by Mr. Layard. It is balanced by

intense blue, and accompanied in each case by a full brown and a clear

white, while in one case it is further accompanied by a pale green,

which has a very good effect. A similar red appears on a design figured

by M. Botta. Its accompaniments are white, black, and full yellow. Where

lilac occurs, it is balanced by its complementary color, yellow, or by

yellow and orange, and further accompanied by white. It is noticeable

also that bright hues are not placed one against the other, but are

separated by narrow bands of white, or brown and white. This use of

white gives a great delicacy and refinement to the coloring, which is

saved by it, even where the hues are the strongest, from being coarse or

vulgar.

The drawing of the designs resembles that of the sculptures except that

the figures are generally slimmer and less muscular. The chief

peculiarity is the strength of the outline, which is almost always

colored differently from the object drawn, either white, black, yellow,

or brown. Generally it is of a uniform thickness (as in No. I., [PLATE

LXXIX., Fig. 2]), sometimes, though rarely, it has that variety which

characterizes good drawing (as in No. II., [PLATE LXXIX Fig. 2]).

Occasionally there is a curious combination of the two styles, as in the

specimen [PLATE LXXX., Fig. 1]--the most interesting yet

discovered--where the dresses of the two main figures are coarsely

outlined in yellow, while the remainder of the design is very lightly

sketched in a brownish black.

[Illustration: PLATE 80]

The size of the designs varies considerably. Ordinarily the figures are

small, each brick containing several; but sometimes a scale has been

adopted of such a size that portions of the same figure must have been

on different bricks. A foot and leg brought by Mr. Layard from Nimrud

must have belonged to a man a foot high; while part of a human face

discovered in the same locality is said to indicate the form to which

it belonged, a height of three feet. Such a size as this is, however,

very unusual.

It is scarcely necessary to state that the designs on the bricks are

entirely destitute of _chiaroscuro_. The browns and blacks, like the

blues, yellows, and reds, are simply used to express local color. They

are employed for hair, eyes, eye-brows, and sometimes for bows and

sandals. The other colors are applied as follows: yellow is used for

flesh, for shafts of weapons, for horse trappings, sometimes for horses,

for chariots, cups, earrings bracelets, fringes, for wing-feathers,

occasionally for helmets, and almost always for the hoofs of horses;

blue is used for shields, for horses, for some parts of horse-trappings,

armor, and dresses, for fish, and for feathers; white is employed for

the inner part of the eye, for the linen shirts worn by men, for the

marking on fish and feathers, for horses, for buildings, for patterns on

dresses, for rams’ heads, and for portions of the tiara of the king.

Olive-green seems to occur only as a ground; red only in some parts of

the royal tiara, orange and lilac only in the wings of winged monsters.

It is doubtful how far we may trust the colors on the bricks as

accurately or approximately resembling the real local hues. In some

cases the intention evidently is to be true to nature, as in the eyes

and hair of men, in the representations of flesh, fish, shields, bows,

buildings, etc. The yellow of horses may represent cream-color, and the

blue may stand for gray, as distinct from white, which seems to have

been correctly rendered. The scarlet and white of the king’s tiara is

likely to be true. When, however, we find eyeballs and eyebrows white,

while the inner part of the eye is yellow, the blade of swords yellow,

and horses’ hoofs blue we seem to have proof that, sometimes at any

rate, local color was intentionally neglected, the artist limiting

himself to certain hues, and being therefore obliged to render some

objects untruly. Thus we must not conclude front the colors of dresses

and horse trappings on the bricks which are three only, yellow, blue and

white--that the Assyrians used no other hues than those, even for the

robes of their kings. It is far more probable that they employed a

variety of tints in their apparel, but did not attempt to render that

variety on the ordinary painted bricks.

The pigments used by the Assyrians seem to have derived their tints

entirely from minerals. The opaque white is found to be oxide of tin;

the yellow is the antimoniate of lead, or Naples yellow, with a slight

admixture of tin; the blue is oxide of copper, without any cobalt; the

green is also from copper; the brown is from iron; and the red is a

suboxide of copper. The bricks were slightly baked before being painted;

they were then taken from the kiln, painted and enamelled on one side

only, the flux and glazes used being composed of silicate of soda aided

by oxide of lead; thus prepared, they were again submitted to the action

of fire, care being taken to place the painted side upwards, and having

been thoroughly baked were then ready for use.

The Assyrian intaglios on stones and gems are commonly of a rude

description; but occasionally they exhibit a good deal of delicacy, and

sometimes even of grace. They are cut upon serpentine, jasper,

chalcedony, cornelian, agate, sienite, quartz, loadstone, amazon-stone,

and lapis-lazuli. The usual form of the stone is cylindrical; the sides,

however, being either slightly convex or slightly concave, most

frequently the latter. [PLATE LXXIX., Fig. 3.] The cylinder is always

perforated in the direction of its axis. Besides this ordinary form, a

few gems shaped like the Greek--that is, either round or oval--have been

found: and numerous impressions from such gems on sealing-clay show that

they must have been a tolerably common. The subjects which occur are

mostly the same as those on the sculptures--warriors pursuing their

foes, hunters in full chase, the king slaying a lion, winged bulls

before the sacred tree, acts of worship and other religious or

mythological scenes. [PLATE LXXXI. Fig. 1.] There appears to have been a

gradual improvement in the workmanship from the earliest period to the

time of Sennacherib, when the art culminates. A cylinder found in the

ruins of Sennacherib’s palace at Koyunjik, which is believed with reason

to have been his signet, is scarcely surpassed in delicacy of execution

by any intaglio of the Greeks. [PLATE LXXXI., Fig. 1.] The design has a

good deal of the usual stiffness, though even here something may be said

for the ibex or wild-goat which stands upon the lotus flower to the

left: but the special excellence of the gem is in the fineness and

minuteness of its execution. The intaglio is not very deep but all the

details are beautifully sharp and distinct, while they are on so small a

scale that it requires a magnifying glass to distinguish them. The

material of the cylinder is translucent green felspar, or amazon-stone,

one of the hardest substances known to the lapidary.

[Illustration: PLATE 81]

The fictile art of the Assyrians in its higher branches, as employed for

directly artistic purposes, has been already considered; but a few pages

may be now devoted to the humbler divisions of the subject, where the

useful preponderates over the ornamental. The pottery of Assyria bears a

general resemblance in shape, form, and use to that of Egypt; but still

it has certain specific differences. According to Mr. Birch, it is,

generally speaking, “finer in its paste, brighter in its color, employed

in thinner masses, and for purposes not known in Egypt.” Abundant and

excellent clay is furnished by the valley of the Tigris, more especially

by those parts of it which are subject to the annual inundation. The

chief employment of this material by the Assyrians was for bricks, which

were either simply dried in the sun, or exposed to the action of fire in

a kiln. In this latter case they seem to have been uniformly

slack-baked; they are light for their size, and are of a pale-red color.

The clay of which the bricks were composed was mixed with stubble or

vegetable fibre, for the purpose of holding it together--a practice

common to the Assyrians with the Egyptians and the Babylonians. This

fibre still appears in the sun-dried bricks, but has been destroyed by

the heat of the kiln in the case of the baked bricks, leaving behind it,

however, in the clay traces of the stalks or stems. The size and shape

of the bricks vary. They are most commonly square, or nearly so; but

occasionally the shape more resembles that of the ancient Egyptian and

modern English brick, the width being about half the length, and the

thickness half or two-thirds of the width. The greatest size to which

the square bricks attain is a length and width of about two feet. From

this maximum they descend by manifold gradations to a minimum of one

foot. The oblong bricks are smaller; they seldom much exceed a foot in

length, and in width vary from six to seven and a half inches. Whatever

the shape and size of the bricks, their thickness is nearly uniform, the

thinnest being as much as three inches in thickness, and the thickest

not more than four inches or four and a half. Each brick was made in a

wooden frame or mould. Most of the baked bricks were inscribed, not

however like the Chaldaean, the Egyptian, and the Babylonian, with an

inscription in a small square or oval depression near the centre of one

of the broad faces, but with one which either covered the whole of one

such face, or else ran along the edge. It is uncertain whether the

inscription was stamped upon the bricks by a single impression, or

whether it was inscribed by the potter with a triangular style. Mr.

Birch thinks the former was the means used, “as the trouble of writing

upon each brick would have been endless.” Mr. Layard, however, is of a

different opinion.

In speaking of the Assyrian writing, some mention has been made of the

terra cotta cylinders and tablets, which in Assyria replaced the

parchment and papyrus of other nations, being the most ordinary writing

material in use through the country. The purity and fineness of the

material thus employed is very remarkable, as well as its strength, of

which advantage was taken to make the cylinders hollow, and thus at once

to render them cheaper and more portable. The terra cotta of the

cylinders and tablets is sometimes unglazed; sometimes the natural

surface has been covered with a “vitreous silicious glaze or white

coating.” The color varies, being sometimes a bright polished brown,

sometimes a pale yellow, sometimes pink, and sometimes a very dark tint,

nearly black. The most usual color however for cylinders is pale yellow,

and for tablets light red, or pink. There is no doubt that in both these

cases the characters were impressed separately by the hand, a small

metal style of rod being used for the purpose.

[Illustration: PLATE 82]

Terra cotta vessels, glazed and unglazed, were in common use among the

Assyrians, for drinking and other domestic purposes. They comprised

vases, lamps, jugs, amphorae, saucers, jars, etc. [PLATE LXXX., Fig. 2.]

The material of the vessels is fine, though generally rather yellow in

tone. The shapes present no great novelty, being for the most part such

as are found both in the old Chaldaean tombs, and in ordinary Roman

sepulchres. Among the most elegant are the funeral urns discovered by M.

Botta at Khorsabad, which are with a small opening at top, a short and

very scanty pedestal, and two raised rings, one rather delicately

chased, by way of ornament. [PLATE LXXXI., Fig. 2.] Another graceful

form is that of the large jars uncovered at Nimrud [PLATE LXXXII., Fig.

1], of which Mr. Layard gives a representation. Still more tasteful are

some of the examples which occur upon the bas-reliefs, and seemingly

represent earthen vases. Among these may be particularized a lustral

ewer resting in a stand supported by bulls’ feet, which appears in front

of a temple at Khorsabad [PLATE LXXXI., Fig. 3], and a wine vase (see

[PLATE LXXXI., Fig. 4]) of ample dimensions, which is found in a banquet

scene at the same place. Some of the lamps are also graceful enough, and

seem to be the prototypes out of which were developed the more elaborate

productions of the Greeks. [PLATE LXXXII., Fig. 2.] Others are more

simple, being without ornament of any kind, and nearly resembling a

modern tea-pot (see No., IV. [PLATE LXXXII., Fig. 2.]) The glazed

pottery is, for the most part, tastefully colored. An amphora, with

twisted arms, found at Nimrud (see [PLATE LXXXIII., Fig. 1]) is of two

colors, a warm yellow, and a cold bluish green. The green predominates

in the upper, the yellow in the under portion; but there is a certain

amount of blending or mottling in the mid-region, which has a very

pleasant effect. A similarly mottled character is presented by two other

amphorae from the same place, where the general hue is a yellow which

varies in intensity, and the mottling is with a violet blue. In some

cases the colors are not blended, but sharply defined by lines, as in a

curious spouted cup figured by Mr. Layard, and in several fragmentary

specimens. Painted patterns are not uncommon upon the glazed pottery,

though upon the unglazed they are scarcely ever found. The most usual

colors are blue, yellow, and white; brown, purple, and lilac have been

met with occasionally. These colors are thought to be derived chiefly

from metallic oxides, over which was laid as a glazing a vitreous

silicated substance. On the whole, porcelain of this fine kind is rare

in the Assyrian remains, and must be regarded as a material that was

precious and used by few.

[Illustration: PLATE 83]

Assyrian glass is among the most beautiful of the objects which have

been exhumed. M. Botta compared it to certain fabrics of Venice and

Bohemia, into which a number sit different colors are artificially

introduced. But a careful analysis has shown that the lovely prismatic

hues which delight us in the Assyrian specimens, varying under different

lights with all the delicacy and brilliancy of the opal, are due, not to

art, but to the wonder-working hand of time, which, as it destroys the

fabric, compassionately invests it with additional grace and beauty.

Assyrian glass was either transparent or stained with a single uniform

color. It was composed, in the usual way, by a mixture of sand or silex

with alkalis, and, like the Egyptian, appears to have been first rudely

fashioned into shape by the blowpipe. It was then more carefully shaped,

and, where necessary, hollowed out by a turning machine, the Marks of

which are sometimes still visible. The principal specimens which have

been discovered are small bottles and bowls, the former not more than

three or four inches high, the latter from four to five inches in

diameter, [PLATE LXXXIII., Fig. 4.] The vessels are occasionally

inscribed with the name of a king, as is the case in the famous vase of

Sargon, found by Mr. Layard at Nimrud, which is here figured. [PLATE

LXXXIII., Fig. 2.] This is the earliest known specimen of _transparent

glass_, which is not found in Egypt until the time of the Psammetichi.

The Assyrians used also opaque glass, which they colored, sometimes red,

with the suboxide of copper, sometimes white, sometimes of other hues.

They seem not to have been able to form masses of glass of any

considerable size; and thus the employment of the material must have

been limited to a few ornamental, rather than useful, purposes. A

curious specimen is that of a pipe or tube, honey-combed externally,

which Mr. Layard exhumed at Koyunjik, and of which the cut [PLATE

LXXXIII., Fig. 1] is a rough representation.

An object found at Nimrud, in close connection with several glass

vessels, is of a character sufficiently similar to render its

introduction in this place not inappropriate. This is a lens composed of

rock crystal, about an inch and a half in diameter, and nearly an inch

thick, having one plain and one convex surface, and somewhat rudely

shaped and polished which, however gives a tolerably distinct focus at

the distance of 4 1/2 inches from the plane side, and which may have

been used either as a magnifying glass or to concentrate the rays of the

sun. The form is slightly oval, the longest diameter being one and

six-tenths inch, the shortest one and four-tenths inch. The thickness is

not uniform, but greater on one side than on the other. The plane

surface is ill-polished and scratched, the convex one, not polished on a

concave spherical disk, but fashioned on a lapidary’s wheel, or by some

method equally rude. As a burn, glass the lens has no great power; but

it magnifies fairly, and may have been of great use to those who

inscribed, or to those who sought to decipher, the royal memoirs. It is

the only object of the kind that has been found among the remains of

antiquity, though it cannot he doubled that lenses were known and were

used as burning glasses by the Greeks.

Some examples have been already given illustrating the tasteful

ornamentation of Assyrian furniture. It consisted, so far as we know, of

tables, chairs, couches, high stools, foot-stools, and stands with

shelves to hold the articles needed for domestic purposes. As the

objects themselves have in all cases ceased to exist, leaving behind

them only a few fragments, it is necessary to have recourse to the

bas-reliefs for such notices as may be thence derived of their

construction and character. In these representations the most ordinary

form of table is one in which the principal of our camp-stools seems to

be adopted, the legs crossing each other as in the illustrations [PLATE

LXXXIV.]. only two legs are represented, but we must undoubtedly regard

these two as concealing two others of the same kind at the opposite end

of the table. The legs ordinarily terminate in the feet of animals,

sometimes of bulls, but more commonly of horses. Sometimes between the

two legs we see a species of central pillar, which, however, is not

traceable below the point where the legs cross one another. The pillar

itself is either twisted or plain (see No. III., [PLATE LXXXIV.]).

Another form of table, less often met with, but simpler, closely

resembles the common table of the moderns. It has merely the necessary

flat top, with perpendicular legs at the corners. The skill of the

cabinet-makers enabled them to dispense in most instances with

cross-bars (see No. I.), which are, however, sometimes seen (see No.

II., No. III., and No. IV.), uniting the legs of this kind of tables.

The corners are often ornamented with lions’ or rams’ heads, and the

feet are frequently in imitation of some animal form (see No. III. and

No. IV.). Occasionally we find a representation of a three-legged table,

as the specimen [PLATE LXXXIV., Fig. 4], which is from a relief at

Koyunjik. The height of tables appears to have been greater than with

ourselves; the lowest reach easily to a man’s middle; the highest are

level with the upper part of the chest.

[Illustration: PLATE 84]

Assyrian thrones and chairs were very elaborate. The throne of

Sennacherib exhibited on its sides and arms three rows of carved

figures, one above another (PLATE LXXXIV.,Fig. 3), supporting the bars

with their hands. The bars, the arms, and the back were patterned. The

legs ended in a pine-shaped ornament very common in Assyrian furniture.

Over the back was thrown an embroidered cloth hinged at the end, which

hung down nearly to the floor. A throne of Sargon’s was adorned on its

sides with three human figures, apparently representations of the king,

below which was the war-horse of the monarch, caparisoned as for battle.

[PLATE LXXXV., Fig. 1.] Another throne of the same monarch’s had two

large and four small figures of men at the side, while the back was

supported on either side by a human figure of superior dimensions. The

use of chairs with high backs, like these, was apparently confined to

the monarchs. Persons of less exalted rank were content to sit on seats

which were either stools, or chairs with a low back level with the arms.

[Illustration: PLATE 85]

Seats of this kind, whether thrones or chairs, were no doubt constructed

mainly of wood. The ornamental work may, however, have been of bronze,

either cast into the necessary shape, or wrought into it by the hammer.

The animal heads at the ends of arms seem to have fallen under the

latter description [PLATE LXXXV., Fig. 2.] In some cases, ivory was

among the materials used: it has been found in the legs of a throne at

Koyunjik, and may not improbably have entered into the ornamentation of

the best furniture very much more generally.

The couches which we find represented upon the sculptures are of a

simple character. The body is flat, not curved; the legs are commonly

plain, and fastened to each other by a cross-bar, sometimes terminating

in the favorite pine-shaped ornament. One end only is raised, and this

usually curves inward nearly in a semicircle. [PLATE LXXXV., Fig. 3.]

The couches are decidedly lower than the Egyptian; and do not, like

them, require a stool or steps in order to ascend them.

Stools, however, are used with the chairs or thrones of which mention

was made above--lofty seats, where such a support for the sitter’s feet

was imperatively required. [PLATE LXXXV.. Fig. 4.] They are sometimes

plain at the sides, and merely cut _en chevron_ at the base; sometimes

highly ornamented, terminating in lions’ feet supported on cones, in the

same (or in volutes), supported on balls, and otherwise adorned with

volutes, lion castings, and the like. The most elaborate specimen is the

stool (No. III.) which supports the feet of Asshur-bani-pal’s queen on a

relief brought from the North Palace at Koyunjik, and now in the

National Collection. Here the upper corners exhibit the favorite

gradines, guarding and keeping in place an embroidered cushion; the legs

are ornamented with rosettes and with horizontal mouldings, they are

connected together by two bars, the lower one adorned with a number of

double volutes, and the upper one with two lions standing back to back;

the stool stands on balls, surmounted first by a double moulding, and

then by volutes.

Stands with shelves often terminate, like other articles of furniture,

in animals’ feet, most commonly lions’, as in the accompanying

specimens. [PLATE LXXXV., Fig. 5.]

Of the embroidered robes and draperies of the Assyrians, as of their

furniture, we can judge only by the representations made of them upon

the bas-reliefs. The delicate texture of such fabrics has prevented them

from descending to our day even in the most tattered condition; and the

ancient testimonies on the subject are for the most part too remote from

the times of the Assyrians to be of much value. Ezekiel’s notice is the

only one which comes within such a period of Assyria’s fall as to make

it an important testimony, and even from this we cannot gather much that

goes beyond the evidence of the sculptures. The sculptures show us that

robes and draperies of all kinds were almost always more or less

patterned; and this patterning, which is generally of an extremely

elaborate kind, it is reasonable to conclude was the work of the needle.

Sometimes the ornamentation is confined to certain portions of garments,

as to the ends of sleeves and the bottoms of robes or tunics; at others

it is extended over the whole dress. This is more particularly the case

with the garments of the kings, which are of a magnificence difficult to

describe, or to represent within a narrow compass. [PLATE LXXXVI, Fig.

1.] One or two specimens, however, may be given almost at random,

indicating different styles of ornamentation usual in the royal apparel.

Other examples will be seen in the many illustrations throughout this

volume where the king is represented. It is remarkable that the earliest

representations exhibit the most elaborate types of all, after which a

reaction seems to set in simplicity is affected, which, however, is

gradually trenched upon, until at last a magnificence is reached little

short of that which prevailed in the age of the first monuments. The

draperies of Asshur-izir-pal in the north-west palace at Nimrud, are at

once more minutely labored and more tasteful than those of any later

time. Besides elegant but unmeaning patterns, they exhibit human and

animal forms, sacred trees, sphinxes, griffins, winged horses, and

occasionally bull-hunts and lion-hunts. The upper part of this king’s

dress is in one instance almost covered with figures, which range

themselves round a circular breast ornament, whereof the cut opposite is

a representation. Elsewhere his apparel is less superb, and indeed it

presents almost every degree of richness, from the wonderful embroidery

of the robe just mentioned to absolute plainness. In the celebrated

picture of the lion-hunt. [PLATE LXXXVI., Fig. 2.] With Sargon, the next

king who has left many monuments, the case is remarkably different.

Sargon is represented always in the same dress--a long fringed robe,

embroidered simply with rosettes, which are spread somewhat scantily

over its whole surface. Sennacherib’s apparel is nearly of the same

kind, or, if anything, richer, though sometimes the rosettes are omitted

His grandson, Asshur-bani-pal, also affects the rosette ornament, but

reverts alike to the taste and the elaboration of the early kings. He

wears a breast ornament containing human figures, around which are

ranged a number of minute and elaborate patterns. [PLATE LXXXVII.]

[Illustration: PLATE 86]

[Illustration: PLATE 87]

To this account of the arts, mimetic and other, in which the Assyrians

appear to have excelled, it might be expected that there should be added

a sketch of their scientific knowledge. On this subject, however, so

little is at present known, while so much may possibly become known

within a short time, that it seems best to omit it, or to touch it only

in the lightest and most cursory manner. When the numerous tablets now

in the British Museum shall have been deciphered, studied, and

translated, it will probably be found that they contain a tolerably full

indication of what Assyrian science really was, and it will then be seen

how far it was real and valuable, in what respects mistaken and

illusory. At present this mine is almost unworked, nothing more having

been ascertained than that the subjects whereof the tables treat are

various, and their apparent value very different. Comparative philology

seems to have been largely studied, and the works upon it exhibit great

care and diligence. Chronology is evidently much valued, and very exact

records are kept whereby the lapse of time can even now be accurately

measured. Geography and history have each an important place in Assyrian

learning; while astronomy and mythology occupy at least as great a share

of attention. The astronomical observations recorded are thought to be

frequently inaccurate, as might be expected when there were no

instruments, or none of any great value. Mythology is a very favorite

subject, and appears to be treated most fully; but hitherto cuneiform

scholars have scarcely penetrated below the surface of the mythological

tablets, baffled by the obscurity of the subject and the difficulty of

the dialect (in) which they are written.

[Illustration: PLATE 88]

On one point alone, belonging to the domain of science, do the Assyrian

representations of their life enable us to comprehend, at least to some

extent, their attainments. The degree of knowledge which this people

possessed on the subject of practical mechanics is illustrated with

tolerable fulness in the bas-reliefs, more especially in the important

series discovered at Koyunjik, where the transport of the colossal bulls

from the quarry to the palace gateways is represented in the most

elaborate detail. [PLATE LXXXVIII.] The very fact that they were able to

transport masses of stone, many tons in weight, over a considerable

space of ground, and to place then on the summit of artificial platforms

from thirty to eighty (or ninety) feet high, would alone indicate

considerable mechanical knowledge. The further fact, now made clear from

the bas-reliefs, that they wrought all the elaborate carving of the

colossi before they proceeded to raise them or put them in place, is an

additional argument of their skill, since it shows that they had no fear

of any accident happening in the transport. It appears from the

representations that they placed their colossus in a standing posture,

not on a truck or wagon of any kind, but on a huge wooden sledge, shaped

nearly like a boat, casing it with an openwork of spars or beams, which

crossed each other at right angles, and were made perfectly tight by

means of wedges. To avert the great danger of the mass toppling over

sideways, ropes were attached to the top of the casing, at the point

where the beams crossed one another, and were held taut by two parties

of laborers, one on either side of the statue. Besides these, wooden

forks or props were applied on either side to the second set of

horizontal cross-beams, held also by men whose business it would be to

resist the least inclination of the huge stone to lean to one side more

than to the other. The front of the sledge on which the colossus stood

was curved gently upwards, to facilitate its sliding along the ground,

and to enable it to rise with readiness upon the rollers, which were

continually placed before it by laborers just in front, while others

following behind gathered them up when the bulky mass had passed over

there. The motive power was applied in front by four gangs of men who

held on to four large cables, at which they pulled by means of small

ropes or straps fastened to them, and passed under one shoulder and over

the other--an arrangement which enabled them to pull by weight as much

as by muscular strength, as the annexed figure will plainly show. [PLATE

LXXXIX., Fig. 1.] The cables appear to have been of great strength, and

are fastened carefully to four strong projecting pins--two near the

front, two at the back part of the sledge, by a knot so tied that it

would be sure not to slip. [PLATE LXXXIX., Fig. 4.] Finally, as in spite

of the rollers, whose use in diminishing friction, and so facilitating

progress, was evidently well understood, and in spite of the amount of

force applied in front, it would have been difficult to give the first

impetus to so great a mass, a lever was skilfully applied behind to

raise the hind part of the sledge slightly, and so propel it forward,

while to secure a sound and firm fulcrum, wedges of wood were inserted

between the lever and the ground. The greater power of a lever at a

distance from the fulcrum being known, ropes were attached to its upper

end, which could not otherwise have been reached, and the lever was

worked by means of them.

We have thus unimpeachable evidence as to the mode whereby the

conveyance of huge blocks of stone along level ground was effected. But

it may be further asked, how were the blocks raised up to the elevation

at which we find them placed? Upon this point there is no direct

evidence; but the probability is that they were drawn up inclined ways,

sloping gently from the natural ground to the top of the platforms. The

Assyrians were familiar with inclined ways, which they used almost

always in their attacks on walled places, and which in many cases they

constructed either of brick or stone. The Egyptians certainly employed

them for the elevation of large blocks; and probably in the earlier

times most nations who affected massive architecture had recourse to the

same simple but uneconomical plan. The crane and pulley were applied to

this purpose later. In the Assyrian sculptures we find no application of

either to building, and no instance at all of the two in combination.

Still each appears on the bas-reliefs separately--the crane employed for

drawing water from the rivers, and spreading it over the lands, the

pulley for lowering and raising the bucket in wells. [PLATE LXXXIX.,

Fig. 3.]

[Illustration: PLATE 89]

We must conclude from these facts that the Assyrians had made

considerable advances in mechanical knowledge, and were, in fact,

acquainted, more or less, with most of the contrivances whereby heavy

weights have commonly been moved and raised among the civilized nations

of Europe. We have also evidence of their skill in the mechanical

processes of shaping pottery and glass, of casting and embossing metals,

and of cutting intaglios upon hard stones. Thus it was not merely in the

ruder and coarser, but likewise in the more delicate processes, that

they excelled. The secrets of metallurgy, of dyeing, enamelling,

inlaying, glass-blowing, as well as most of the ordinary manufacturing

processes, were known to them. In all the common arts and appliances of

life, they must be pronounced at least on a par with the Egyptians,

while in taste they greatly exceeded, not that nation only, but all the

Orientals. Their “high art” is no doubt much inferior to that of Greece;

but it has real merit, and is most remarkable considering the time when

it was produced. It has grandeur, dignity, boldness, strength, and

sometimes even freedom and delicacy; it is honest and painstaking,

unsparing of labor, and always anxious for truth. Above all, it is not

lifeless and stationary, like the art of the Egyptians and the Chinese,

but progressive and aiming at improvement. To judge by the advance over

previous works which we observe in the sculptures of the son of

Esarhaddon, it would seem that if Assyria had not been assailed by

barbaric enemies about his time, she might have anticipated by above a

century the finished excellence of the Greeks.