[112] See Layard, Monuments, 1st series, plates 15 and 16.

[113] In one relief the figures of these swimmers are no more than fourteen inches long (British Museum, Assyrian Basement room, No. 56).

[114] Layard, Monuments, 1st series, plate 57; 2nd series, plates 25 and 28.

[115] Ibid. (1st series), plate 63; Discoveries, p. 457.

[116] We have refrained from giving a reproduction of this fragment on account of its bad condition. Its surface is rough; it lacks the head, the forearms and the foreparts of the feet. The material is a coarse limestone. The height of the fragment is thirty-eight inches.

[117] No people that have ever lived have been more solicitous than the Assyrians to transmit the remembrance of their exploits to posterity. We thus find that many of their sculptured slabs had their posterior faces, those that were turned to the wall, also covered with inscriptions.

[118] Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 437.

[119] Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 448.

[120] British Museum. The whole series is illustrated in Layard, Monuments, 2nd series, plates 20–24.

[121] Sir H. Layard’s translation is different (Discoveries, p. 152). That quoted in the text has been kindly furnished to us by M. Oppert.

[122] Sir H. Layard, who has seen more Assyrian sculptures in place than any one else, seems to have been much struck by these incongruities. “It is rare,” he says, “to find an entire (Assyrian) bas-relief equally well executed in all its parts” (Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 78).

[123] This impression is still more strongly felt on glancing through the plates in which Sir H. Layard has reproduced in their entirety the series of sculptures which we can only show in fragmentary fashion. Compare, for example, the Panathenaic cortége with two processions taken from the palace of Sennacherib, the grooms leading horses, and servants carrying fruits and other comestibles (Monuments, 2nd series, plates 7–9), and the triumphal march of the Assyrian army with its chariots (ib. plates 47–49).

[124] Layard, Monuments, 2nd series, plates 45 and 46.

[125] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 302–314.

[126] At Nimroud, in the palace of Esarhaddon, the lions and bulls of the gateways are of a grey and rather coarse limestone, while the bas-reliefs are of alabaster (Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. pp. 26 and 163). The same mixture occurs in the palace of Assurnazirpal. Several of the bulls in that building are of a fine yellow limestone which must have been brought from the hills of Kurdistan (Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 315).

[127] Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 316; Discoveries, pp. 307, 308, 309, &c.

[128] Each side of the original has five reliefs. We have been compelled to suppress one in order to give our figures sufficient scale.

[129] The obelisk reliefs should be studied in horizontal bands, and not by taking the whole of a face at a time. A translation of the accompanying texts will be found in Oppert’s Expédition, vol. i; and reproductions of all the four faces in Layard’s Monuments, 1st series, plates 53–56.

[130] Place, Ninive, vol. i, p. 150, and vol. iii. plate 48, fig. 3.

[131] Heuzey, Catalogue des figurines en terre cuite du musée du Louvre, vol. i. p. 26.

[132] Heuzey, Catalogue, &c., p. 18.

[133] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 375.

[134] Both the British Museum and the Louvre possess examples of this kind of work in which the handling shows the greatest freedom.

[135] The slab numbered 107 contains, perhaps, the nearest approach to a reproduction of the group in question.

[136] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 197–203, and figs. 179 and 180.

[137] This was the opinion of M. de Longpérier (Musée Napoléon III., description of plate 1).

[138] See vol. i. page 242.

[139] See also plate xii.

[140] Layard, Discoveries, p. 563.

[141] De Longpérier, Notice des antiquités assyriennes du Musée du Louvre, 3rd edition, 1854.

[142] We take this transcription from a note sent by Dr. Birch to the Athenæum (14 July, 1877), when the ivory in question, together with many more objects, was stolen from the British Museum. It was offered by the thief, in the first place, to M. de Longpérier, who thought it a forgery, and afterwards to the keeper of the Hague Museum, who, put on his guard by the publicity which by that time had been given to the theft, detained the piece and restored it to its legitimate owners.

[143] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 293–295.

[144] Layard, Discoveries, p. 361. The same characteristics may be recognized in the alabaster statues found by Place in one of the harem courts at Khorsabad (Ninive, vol. i. pp. 122–125, and vol. iii. plate 31, bis.). They are shown on a small scale in our fig. 197 (vol. i.). We may see that they were set with their backs against a wall, and that they carried a cushion on their heads, on which we have placed a vase of flowers. These statues were drowned in the Tigris!

[145] We may also quote the following monuments as examples of Assyrian statues: 1. The fragment of a seated statue found at Kaleh-Shergat, which we figure on page 127 (Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. pp. 51–52). 2. The head of a statue of Istar, discovered at Kouyundjik (Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, pp. 248 and 430). This head is about nine inches high. 3. Fragment of a colossal statue of shelly limestone, found in the same place by the same explorer (ibid. p. 430). It consists only of a part of the left shoulder. There is an inscription on the back tracing the descent of Assurbanipal from Sargon.

[146] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 284–288; vol. i. fig. 173, and vol. ii. fig. 240.

[147] E. Guillaume, in his Considérations sur les Principes de l’Histoire du Bas-relief, which was read at the annual public meeting of the five Academies in Paris on the 14th August, 1866, (Didot, 4to.).

[148] Vol. I. page 266.

[149] In this particular, the two large bulls from Khorsabad in the British Museum are better placed than the pair in the Louvre. Their position at the entrance to the Khorsabad Transept (?), gives an exact idea of their original arrangement.—Ed.

[150] It must not be thought, however, that its employment was universal. In the palace of Sennacherib, at Kouyundjik, and in one of the palaces at Nimroud, the bulls had only four legs.

[151] See Perrot and Guillaume, Expédition archéologique de la Galatie, vol. i. pp. 345, 346, and vol. ii. plate 57.

[152] This contrivance may also be seen on the small limestone stele, covered with writing, which represents Assurbanipal carrying a basket on his head, and preparing to make an offering to the gods (British Museum, Assyrian Side Room).

[153] Look for instance at the last figure but one, on the right, in Place, vol. iii. plate 60, fig. 4. It is that of a man turning to speak to one who follows him. The feet are turned in one direction, and the head in one diametrically opposite to it. Nothing more ungraceful could be conceived.

[154] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. i. fig. 98; vol. ii. figs. 250, 254, 255, &c.

[155] Ibid. p. 294.

[156] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 185–196, plates ix. x. xi. and figs. 172, 173, 174, 178, 183, 198, 199, 205, 208, 213, 214, 215, 216, 223, &c.

[157] Ibid. figs. 273–275.

[158] Ibid. p. 192.

[159] An almost unique exception to this rule occurs in those bas-reliefs in the British Museum which represent the great hunts of Assurbanipal. We there see a company of beardless individuals marching, bare-headed, dressed in a short tunic and armed with lance and buckler. But this is an apparent rather than a real exception. The chase is not war. These men are not soldiers, but attendants on the hunt, an inferior kind of shikarrie. In the battle pieces we sometimes see the eunuchs attached to the king’s person fighting at his elbow.

[160] We have no reason to believe that the Egyptian fashion of wearing wigs obtained in Assyria (Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. pp. 327, 378). Herodotus tells us that in his time the Chaldæans wore long hair (i. 195).

[161] This is the opinion of M. Lenormant (Gazette des Beaux Arts, vol. xxv. pp. 218–225), and M. Ménant has upheld the same thesis in a paper read before the Académie des Inscriptions (Remarques sur des Portraits des Rois Assyro-Chaldéens, in the Comptes Rendus for 1881, pp. 254–267).

[162] On this point again I regret to be unable to agree with M. Ménant; I am unable to perceive any of the differences of which he speaks (see p. 258 of his paper).

[163] Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 500.

[164] Upon the discovery of these figures and their nature, see Layard, Discoveries, p. 230.

[165] Layard, Nineveh, vol. i. pp. 126–127. The English explorer himself remarks in speaking of this relief, that the features of the men show nothing of the special type which the artist endeavoured to suggest by this clumsy expedient.

[166] This is what M. Ménant sees in this Babylonian stele: “It represents a race with a short, thickset body, a short neck buried between the shoulders, a flat nose and thick lips” (p. 259 of his paper).

[167] Layard, Discoveries, p. 537.

[168] Herodotus, i. 192.

[169] Loftus gives a poor reproduction of this monument, which he found at Sinkara (Travels, &c., p. 258). We have not reproduced it, because it is in much worse condition than the terra-cotta dog.

[170] Herodotus, i. 193.

[171] Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. p. 234. Upon each of these figures appears the dog’s name, which always bears some relation to the qualities he displayed in the performance of his duties.

[172] This relief is figured in Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. p. 356.

[173] W. Houghton, On the Mammalia of the Assyrian Sculptures in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. v. pp. 33–64, and 579–583.

[174] We are tempted to believe that these animals were exterminated before the days of the Sargonids by the unrelenting pursuit to which they were subjected; they are not to be found in the pictures of Assurbanipal’s hunts. On the other hand, in the palace of Assurnazirpal, which dates from two centuries earlier, they were figured with peculiar insistence and in great detail (Layard, Monuments, first series, plates 11, 12, 32, 43–44, 46, 48 and 49).

[175] Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. p. 351; Layard, Monuments, first series, plate 58. Second series, plates 26 and 29.

[176] Layard, Monuments, first series, plates 58 and 60.

[177] Place, Ninive, vol. ii. p. 233.

[178] Among the reliefs in which the Assyrian horse may be best studied, are the slabs from the palace of Sennacherib, in which a string of horses led by grooms are shown (Layard, Monuments, second series, plate 7). They have no trappings or clothing of any kind to hide their form.

[179] Other incidents, figured with no less spirit, will be found in Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 355, 356; 516, 517.

[180] Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 21, Monuments, first series, plate 61; second series, plate 50. Botta (Monuments de Ninive, plate 128), reproduces a group of camels sketched with a light hand, but with much truth and judgment.

[181] Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 433. All four faces of this obelisk are reproduced on plates 53–56 of the first series of Layard’s Monuments.

[182] Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 40 and 350; and Layard, Discoveries, p. 109.

[183] Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. pp. 434, 435.

[184] Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 436. The Assyrians seem to have been much struck with these apes when they first appeared at Calah. This is shown by the care expended upon them by the sculptor of Shalmaneser’s obelisk; he has reproduced the bas-relief of Assurnazirpal on a smaller scale (Layard, Monuments, first series, Plate 55).

[185] Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 437.

[186] Layard, Monuments, series ii. plates 32 (Khorsabad), and 40 (Kouyundjik).

[187] A lion hunt is to be found in the bas-reliefs of Assurnazirpal, dating from the ninth century, B.C. (Layard, Monuments, first series, plates 10 and 31); but it is especially in those of Assurbanipal (7th century), that the animal becomes so conspicuous.

[188] On the subject of these great hunts and their arrangements, see Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 505–512. The custom is still kept up in Eastern countries, and their personnel is pretty much the same as it was in antiquity. See Chardin, Voyage en Perse (Langles’ edition), vol. iii. p. 399; and Rousselet, L’Inde des Rajahs, pp. 202, 464, 468.

[189] These caged lions are only found in the bas-reliefs of Assurbanipal. The number of lions killed between the eleventh and seventh centuries B.C. must have been something extraordinary. Tiglath-Pileser I. boasts in one of his inscriptions of having done eight hundred lions to death. In time they must have become rare in Assyria. They must then have been brought from Chaldæa or Susiana, where they have always been more abundant, and transported to the north in carts, cages and all, there to afford sport for the king. In our day lions are hardly to be found higher up the Tigris than Bagdad; but on the Euphrates they occur much farther north, as far as Bir and all over the valley of the Khabour (Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 48). They are most numerous in the marshes of the lower Euphrates, where they were hunted in boats by the kings of Assyria (Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 361 and 508). Most of the lions of Mesopotamia have very little mane, but a few have been encountered here and there in which that feature is largely developed. These seem to have been chosen as models by the Assyrian artists.

[190] In one single series of these reliefs, there are eleven lions killed and seven terribly wounded.

[191] The king sometimes found himself engaged with a lion at the closest quarters. In an inscription on one of these reliefs, Assurbanipal thus expresses himself. “I, Assurbanipal, king of the nations, king of Assyria, fighting on foot in my great courage with a lion of terrifying size, I seized him by the ear(!), and, in the name of Assur and Istar, goddess of war, I put an end to his life with the lance I held in my hand.” (Fox Talbot in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xix. p. 272).

[192] Layard, Discoveries, p. 487. As to the part played by the lion in the ceremonies of the present court of Abyssinia, see Georges Perrot, Les Fouilles de M. de Sarzec en Chaldée, pp. 532, 534, of the Revue des deux Mondes for October 1, 1882.

[193] The same rock may be identified in the fragments from Tello. There is a kind of cylindrical base in the Louvre, which appears to have been cut from a material differing in no respect from that of the object figured above. Lions’ heads appear upon it also.

[194] Upon the employment of the head and paws of the lion as an ornament, see also Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 301.

[195] In the inventory this monument is described as acquired in Syria, that is to say it was bought from M. Peretié, at Beyrout. M. Peretié was a well-known collector, and objects found in Mesopotamia were continually brought to him from Mossoul, Bagdad, and Bassorah. There can be no doubt as to the origin of this little monument; the execution is certainly Chaldæan or Assyrian. The same monster, rampant, is to be found on the Assyrian cylinder described by M. Lenormant under the title, Le Dieu-lune délivré de l’Attaque des mauvais Esprits (Gazette archéologique, 1878, p. 20).

[196] As to where this colossus was found, see Layard, Nineveh, vol. i. p. 68.

[197] De Longperier, Deux bronzes Antiques de Van (in his Œuvres, vol. i. pp. 275–278).

[198] In de Longperier’s reproduction of one of these figures, the ring attached to its back is shown.

[199] G. Perrot, Les Fouilles de M. de Sarzec en Chaldée, in the Revue des deux Mondes, for October 1, 1882. A methodical account of the whole enterprise will be found in a forthcoming work, which will bear for title: Découvertes en Chaldée, par M. E. de Sarzec, ouvrage publié par les soins de la conservation des antiquités orientales au Musée du Louvre. Its quarto size will make it a more convenient work than those of Botta and Place. The illustrations will be produced by the Dujardin heliogravure process.

[200] Saïd-Hassan and Chatra, of which we have made use to give some approximate idea as to where Tello is situated, are marked upon the map given by Loftus (Travels and Researches, &c.).

[201] Vol. I. Chap. I. § 4.

[202] M. Oppert believes that he has discovered in the inscriptions of Gudea, proof that the stone he employed came from Egypt. We cannot attempt to discuss the phrases which seem to him to bear that sense. We have some difficulty, however, in believing either that they took the trouble to transport such ponderous blocks across the desert, or that they sent them on a voyage round the whole peninsula of Arabia, a voyage that must have lasted some months, and that when similar materials were within reach. See what Mr. Taylor says about the district which is called Hedjra (heap of stones, from Hadjar, stone), from the numerous masses of black granite that may be found there. This district is almost opposite Schenafieh, not far from Bahr-ul-nejef (Notes on Abou-Sharein, p. 404, of vol. xv, of the Royal Asiatic Society’s Journal).

[203] Heuzey, Les Fouilles de la Chaldée, p. 16 (extracted from the Revue archéologique for January, 1881).

[204] Perhaps we should rather give the Chaldæan artist the credit of having produced a not untruthful bird’s-eye view. The bodies in the sepulchre are evidently stretched side by side, and they diminish in size from front to back, as their distance from the eye of the spectator increases. The two living men are mounting upon the edge, or wall, of the grave, an edge such as the tomb figured on p. 358 of Vol. I. (Fig. 164) must have had before its lid was put on. In these two figures there is an unmistakable attempt to give the effect of distance in varying their size. A curious detail in this relief is the post with a rope knotted round it that appears in the lower left hand corner.—Ed.

[205] It has been thought that the inscriptions contain proof, that, during the period, to which this primitive art belongs, Sirtella was the capital of a small independent kingdom, while the title of Gudea (patési, or governor) would seem to show that in his time it formed part of a larger state. Gudea can only have been a great feudatory; his position must have been similar to the nome princes in Egypt. Heuzey, in the Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions for 18 August, 1882.

[206] A tenth statue of Gudea, very much mutilated, is not yet exhibited. There is also the lower part of a small seated statue, without inscription.

[207] The great seated statue that occupies the middle of the room is five feet three inches in height, and has no head. One of the standing statues is four feet eight inches high. The one figured in our Plate VI. is only four feet two inches. The small statue called the architect (Fig. 96) is three feet one inch. It will be seen that some of these figures are over, and some under, life-size; one only, if we allow for the head, will correspond with what we may call the height of a man.

[208] Letter from M. de Sarzec read to the Académie des Inscriptions on the 2nd December, 1881 (reprinted in Heuzey, Fouilles de Chaldée).

[209] On the knees of these seated figures we find the scale, the stylus and the plan of a fortified city that we explained on pages 327 and 328 of our first volume.

[210] Heuzey, Les Fouilles de Chaldée, p. 12.

[211] Some may be inclined to think that the bald head may once have been protected by a covering cut from a separate block. This idea was suggested to us by the existence in the British Museum of a kind of wig of black stone (Nimroud Gallery, case H). It is carved to imitate hair, and, in front, has a kind of crest, the whole being cut from one piece of stone. It may have been used to surmount a limestone figure, and the contrast between the light colour of the one material, and the blackness of the other would be neither unpleasant nor unfitting. In another case (A) of the same gallery, we find beards and wigs made some of glass, others of a sandy frit imitating lapis-lazuli. The use of these disconnected pieces must then have been very widespread. But we doubt whether the Tello head ever had such a covering, because that part of its surface which would in such a case have been hidden from sight, is finished with the same care as all the rest. If the artist had included a wig in his calculations, would he have taken the pains he did with the modelling and polishing of the cranium?

[212] In the sculptures representing the erection of Sennacherib’s palace, many of the workmen have their heads protected from the sun by a turban resembling that of the Tello statue. This can hardly be clearly seen in small scale reproductions (Vol. I. Figs. 151 and 152), but Layard gives two of these heads on the original scale, for the express purpose of calling attention to their singular head-dress (Monuments, series ii. plate 16).

[213] Here M. Heuzey answers M. Ménant, who thought he could discover in these two heads that the sculptor’s models had not been Semites, but belonged to the primitive race, of Turanians, no doubt, by whom the Chaldæan civilization was founded (Les Fouilles de M. de Sarzec en Mesopotamia, in the number for December, 1880, of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts).

[214] Heuzey, Les Fouilles, &c., p. ii.

[215] Heuzey, Les Fouilles de Chaldée, pp. 13, 14.

[216] De Longpérier, Musée Napoléon III., plate 2.

[217] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. fig. 271.

[218] Heuzey, Catalogue, p. 32.

[219] Heuzey, Les Fouilles de la Chaldée, p. 15.

[220] We may give as an instance the very small fragment of a relief in white stone, representing the Indian humped bull, the zebu, which has also been met with in the Assyrian bas-reliefs. The treatment is very fine.

[221] See De Longperier, Monuments antiques de la Chaldée decouverts et rapportés par M. de Sarzec (Œuvres, vol. i. p. 335). The learned archæologist, of whom the writing of this paper was one of the last occupations, saw in this fragment evidence of worship rendered to the great rivers that watered and fertilized Mesopotamia; the double stream of water is the symbol of Naharaim, or “the two rivers,” a symbol whose presence in other objects from the same region he points out.

[222] Loftus (Travels, p. 116), describes a statue of black granite that he found at Hammam in lower Chaldæa. So far as we can tell from his short description, it must bear no slight resemblance to the Tello statues. The right shoulder was bare and had an inscription engraved upon it. The rest of the figure was clothed, and the hands were crossed upon the knees. The head was missing. At Warka the same traveller saw a bas-relief representing a man striking an animal; it was of basalt and was broken into several pieces. Among the objects acquired in 1877 by the British Museum, I find mentioned “a fragment of black granite or basalt, which seems to belong to a statue of Hammourabi, king of Babylon about 1,500 years before our era.” (Account of the Income and Expenditure of the British Museum for 1878.) Is not this the broken statue which now figures in the gallery under the name of Gudea? At the first moment the inscription may not have been readily deciphered; the summary report presented to Parliament seems, indeed, to name Hammourabi with some hesitation.

[223] This type comes from Tello. Among the statuettes found there by M. de Sarzec, there were some in which it was reproduced, but they were all inferior to the example figured above. Layard found statuettes inspired by the same motive in a mound near Bagdad (Discoveries, p. 477).