[328] The cylinder published by Layard, Introduction à l’Étude du Culte public et des Mystères de Mithra, plate xxv. No. 4. See on the subject of the inscription upon it, Levy, Siegel und Gemmen, plate 1, No. 15. A certain number of intaglios with Aramaic characters, which belong to the same class, have been studied and described by M. de Vogué, in his Mélanges d’Archéologie orientale, pp. 120–130.

[329] National Library, Paris; No. 1086.

[330] National Library, No. 978.

[331] Ménant, Empreintes de Cachets assyro-chaldéens relevées au Musée britannique (Archives des Missions, 1882, p. 375), fig. 5.

[332] Ibid. fig. 25.

[333] A kneeling figure occurs on a contract dated from the seventh century, Ménant, ibid. p. 376, fig. 7. Several impressions in the London collection show us personages in the modern attitude of prayer before the figure of a god overshadowed by huge wings. Ibid. figs. 26 and 27.

[334] Ménant, Empreinte de Cachets, &c. fig. 65.

[335] De Luynes collection, No. 188. Diameter 1 inch.

[336] No. 986.

[337] Ibid. figs. 20–24, 27, 30, 31, 41–44.

[338] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 290, 291.

[339] Ménant, Rapport sur les Cylindres du Musée britannique, p. 127.

[340] Soldi, Les Cylindres babyloniens (Revue archéologique, vol. xxviii.), p. 153.

[341] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. i. fig. 85.

[342] Layard, Discoveries, p. 281. A scarab of Amenophis III. has also been found. Layard also tells us that he found several scarabæi of Egyptian manufacture, while excavating at Nimroud, and others were brought to him which had been found in different parts of Mesopotamia.

[343] Account of the income and expenditure of the British Museum for 1878.

[344] In a recently published work (Kritik des Ægyptischen Ornaments, archäologische Studie, with two lithographic plates, Marburg, 8vo, 1883) Herr Ludwig von Sybel has investigated the influence exercised by what he calls Asiatic ornament upon Egyptian art, after the commencement of the second Theban empire. The impression left by his inquiry—which is conducted with much order and critical acumen—is that Egypt, by the intermediary of the Phœnicians, received more from Assyria and Chaldæa than she gave. This influence was exercised chiefly by the numerous metal objects imported into the Nile valley from western Asia, where metallurgy was more advanced and more active than in Egypt. We may have doubts as to some of Herr von Sybel’s comparisons, and may think he sometimes exaggerates the Asiatic influence, but none the less may his work be read both with profit and interest.

[345] See above, page 98.

[346] Layard, Monuments, first series, plate 7.

[347] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. chapter iv. § 1.

[348] Vol. I. Chapter II. § 7.

[349] The ornament reproduced in our Plate XIII. is borrowed from a plate of Layard’s Monuments (first series, plate 80), and the two subjects brought together in Plate XIV. are taken from plate 55 of the second series. Our Plate XV. brings together, on a smaller scale, the figures which occupy plates 29, 30 and 31 of Place’s Ninive.

[350] Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 311.

[351] Place, Ninive, plate 32.

[352] Layard, Discoveries, p. 166, note.

[353] Place, Ninive, vol. ii. pp. 251, 252.

[354] Lepsius, Les Métaux dans les Inscriptions egyptiennes. Translated into French by W. Berend, and with additions by the author, 1877.

[355] Layard, Discoveries, p. 166.

[356] Ibid. p. 166.

[357] Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 313.

[358] Layard, Discoveries, p. 166.

[359] Place, Ninive, vol. ii. p. 252.

[360] Diodorus, ii. viii. 4.

[361] Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 91, 92. We borrow figs. 163–8 from Professor Rawlinson. Some of these, he tells us, are from drawings by Mr. Churchill, the artist who accompanied Loftus into Chaldæa and Susiana; the rest are taken from objects now in the British Museum.

[362] We borrow the figures numbered 183, 184, 186 and 187, from the plate accompanying a remarkable paper by M. Helbig, in which he points out the similarities that exist between this Ninevite pottery, and the oldest pottery of Attica and the Ægæan islands (Osservazioni sopra la provenienza della decorazione geometrica, in the Annales de l’Institut de Correspondance archéologique, 1875, p. 221). The tracings reproduced by M. Helbig (tavola d’aggiunta, H), were made by Mr. Murray. Our figures 182, 185, and 188 were taken from drawings made by myself in the British Museum.

[363] Place, Ninive, vol. ii. p. 150.

[364] Birch, History of Ancient Pottery, 2nd edition, 1873, p. 91.

[365] Birch, History of Ancient Pottery, 2nd edition, 1873, p. 104.

[366] The British Museum possesses some fine examples of these coffins; they were transported to England by Loftus, who had some difficulty in bringing them home intact. See Loftus, Travels and Researches, &c., p. 204; Layard, Discoveries, pp. 558–561; and Birch, History of Ancient Pottery, pp. 105–107. In the upper parts of the mounds at Warka and Niffer, where these slipper-shaped coffins were packed in thousands, fragments of glazed earthenware, plates and vases, were also found; they seemed to date from the same period.

[367] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 375.

[368] Botta, Monument de Ninive, vol. v. p. 173. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 389–391.

[369] On this subject see a note by Sir David Brewster (?), appended to Layard, Discoveries, pp. 674–676.

[370] Layard, Discoveries, p. 197.

[371] Layard, Nineveh, vol. i. p. 421; Discoveries, p. 197.

[372] Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. p. 574.

[373] A detailed description of this curious object will be found in a note supplied to Layard by Sir David Brewster, who made a careful examination of the lens (Discoveries, p. 197).

[374] See Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, &c., vol. i. pp. 95–97.

[375] On the richness of the metalliferous deposits about the head-waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, see vol. i. pp. 124, 125.

[376] Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. p. 98.

[377] Ibid.

[378] Ibid.

[379] Place, Ninive, vol. ii. p. 263.

[380] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 303–305 and 379.

[381] Place, Ninive, vol. i. pp. 84–89, and plates 70, 71.

[382] A certain number of iron implements are exhibited in the British Museum (Kouyundjik Gallery, case E); they were found for the most part at Nimroud, by Sir H. Layard (Discoveries, pp. 174 and 194). Among objects particularly mentioned by him are feet of chairs, tables, &c., mattocks and hammers, the heads of arrows and lances, and a double-handled saw 62 inches long.

[383] Place, Ninive, vol. i. p. 264 and plate 71; figs. 5, 6 and 7.

[384] This is formally stated by Dr. Percy, who furnished Layard with a long note upon the composition of the Assyrian bronzes (Discoveries, p. 670). At Nimroud, the latter found helmets and cuirasses of iron with surface ornaments of bronze (Nineveh, vol. i. p. 341). He speaks of this proceeding as characteristic of Assyrian metal-work (Discoveries, p. 191).

[385] To the evidence of Layard, which we have already had occasion to quote on this point, we may add that of Rich (Kurdistan, vol. i. pp. 176 and 222).

[386] Layard, Discoveries, chapter viii.

[387] See Dr. Percy’s note, at the end of the Discoveries, p. 670.

[388] Layard, Discoveries, pp. 176–178.

[389] Nahum, ii. 9.

[390] E. Flandin, Voyage archéologique.

[391] Layard, Discoveries, pp. 198, 199.

[392] In 1882 these fragments were in the Nimroud central saloon. In the Assyrian side room, close to the door, there is another throne whose bronze casing might be restored almost in its entirety. Its decoration is less rich, however, than that of the thrones of which we have been speaking. A poor drawing of it may be found in George Smith’s Assyrian Discoveries, p. 432.

[393] This is not complete; about a third of it seems to be missing.

[394] Reasoning from the analogy of the ivories above mentioned, it might be thought that this fragmentary column belonged to the balustrade of a window. M. Dieulafoy, who first drew our attention to the fragment, provided us with a photograph of it, and is of that opinion.

[395] In Botta, Monument de Ninive, plate 164, a bronze bull’s head is figured which must have been used as the arm of a chair.

[396] This motive was by no means rare. Some more examples will be found reproduced in Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 301. At Malthaï there are human figures between the uprights of the throne on which the second deity is seated. They may be seen more clearly in Place’s large plate (No. 45), than in our necessarily small engraving.

[397] 1 Kings x. 18.

[398] Layard, Discoveries, p. 198; Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, pp. 431, 432.

[399] George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, p. 432.

[400] As soon as these ivories arrived at the British Museum, the learned keeper of the Oriental Antiquities was struck by their Egyptian character. A paper which he published at the time may be consulted with profit (Birch, Observations on two Egyptian cartouches, and some other ivory ornaments found at Nimroud, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, second series, vol. iii. pp. 151–177.)

[401] Layard, Discoveries, p. 195.

[402] Layard, Monuments, first series, plate 24.

[403] Ibid. plates 55 and 56. In the second stage of reliefs, counting from the bottom.

[404] Among the ivories in case C of the Nimroud Gallery there is a kind of blackish ivory egg, which may have served as the knob of a sceptre. In an oval crowned by the uræus between two feathers, we find an inscription which appears to be Phœnician. It has been read as the name of a king of Cyprus. Loftus, in a letter addressed to the Athenæum (1855, p. 351), speaks of other ivories from the south-western palace at Nimroud. They are the remains of a throne, and were found in a deposit of wood ashes. He says there was a shaft formed by figures placed back to back and surmounted by a capital shaped like a flower. There was also, according to the same authority, a Phœnician inscription.

[405] See Vol. I., pp. 299–302.

[406] My researches were not confined to the ivories in the cases. I also went through the thousands of pieces in the closed drawers which are not shown, in some instances because of their broken condition, in others because they are merely duplicates of better specimens in the selection exhibited.

[407] The feet found by Sir H. Layard at Nimroud must, as he conjectured, have belonged to one of these tripods (Discoveries, pp. 178–179).

[408] We should also mention another vase, shaped like the muzzle of a lion, which was used to take liquids out of a large crater set upon a stand (Botta, Monument de Ninive, vol. i. plate 76. See also M. Botta’s plate 162, where the chief examples from the bas-reliefs are figured).

[409] Layard, Discoveries, p. 197.

[410] In the eighth chapter of the Discoveries, Layard gives a sort of inventory, rather desultory in form, perhaps, but nevertheless very instructive and valuable, of the principal objects found in the magazines—we have borrowed largely from these pages. The most important of the cups are reproduced, in whole or in part, in the plates numbered from 57 to 68 of the Monuments, second series. A complete and accurate study of the cups and other objects of the same kind discovered in Western Asia will be found in M. Albert Dumont’s Les Céramiques de la Grèce propre (pp. 112–129).

[411] Layard, Monuments, second series, plate 68.

[412] This platter is figured in Layard’s Monuments, plate 63, but our drawing was made from the original.

[413] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 87–89.

[414] It is numbered 619 in the museum inventory. It bears an inscription in Aramaic characters.

[415] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. figs. 280, 281.

[416] Inscriptions of this kind have been found on five or six of the bronze platters in the British Museum. They are about to be printed in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, part ii., Inscriptiones Aramæa, vol. i.

[417] Thus, according to M. de Vogüé, who has examined the inscriptions upon the cups recently cleaned, three of the cups from Nimroud bear respectively the names of Baalazar (Baal protects him), Elselah (El pardons him) and Beharel (El has chosen him). Baalazar was a scribe.

[418] See above, p. 220, note 2.

[419] See Prisse, Histoire de l’Art egyptien, vol. ii. plate entitled Le Pharaon Khouenaten servi par la reine. The kind of saucer held by the queen is more like the Assyrian pateræ in shape.

[420] See in Prisse’s Histoire, the plates classed under the head Arts industriels, and especially the four entitled Vases en Or émaillé et cloisonné. In all these I can only find one patera, in the plate called Collection de Vases du Règne de Ramesés III. There is nothing to show that the vases here figured were not earthenware.

[421] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. figs. 287, 288. See also the great vultures on the ceilings (ibid. fig. 282), and winged females (ibid. fig. 287).

[422] Prisse, Histoire de l’Art egyptien, vol. ii., the plate entitled Types de Sphinx.

[423] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. fig. 239, and Prisse, in the plate above quoted.

[424] A cursory glance through the pages dedicated by Prisse to the industrial arts is conclusive on this point, the heads of snakes and horses, the figures of negroes and prisoners of war are almost invariably placed back to back on the objects they are used to adorn. Examples of this abound, but in order to understand what we may call the principle of this ornamentation it will suffice to refer to figs. 314, 327, and 328 of the second volume of our History of Art in Ancient Egypt.

[425] In Prisse’s plate entitled Choix de Bijoux de diverses Époques, there is a bracelet with a central motive recalling that of our cup. It shows us two griffins separated by a palmette from which rises a tall stem of papyrus between several pairs of volutes. This object is, however, almost unique of its kind, and we do not exactly know to what epoch it belongs. May it not belong to a period when Egyptian art began to be affected by that of Mesopotamia, an influence that is betrayed in more than one particular? According to Herr Von Sybel, who has studied Egyptian ornament with so much care, this motive of two animals facing each other did not appear before the nineteenth dynasty, and he looks upon it as purely Asiatic in its origin (Kritik des Ægyptischen Ornaments, pp. 37, 38). We may also quote a small box of Egyptian faïence inscribed with the oval of Ahmes II, the Amasis of Herodotus. It bears two griffins quite similar to those of our group, separated by a cypress. But Dr. Birch, who was the first to publish this monument, recognizes that, in spite of the cartouch, its physiognomy is more Assyrian than Egyptian (Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, Series II. p. 177).

[426] See on this subject an ingenious and learned paper to which we shall more than once have occasion to refer, namely, M. Clermont-Ganneau’s Étude d’Archéologie orientale, l’Imagerie phénicienne et la Mythologie iconologique chez les Grecs. First part: La Coupe phénicienne de Palestina (1880, 8vo, 8 plates).

[427] Layard, Monuments, second series, plate 66.

[428] Houghton, On the Mammalia of Assyrian Sculptures, p. 382.

[429] Layard, Monuments, second series, plate 67.

[430] Layard, Monuments, second series, plate 62, B.

[431] Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. chapter vii.; Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. pp. 338–348.

[432] Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, &c., vol. i. pp. 408–410.

[433] Botta, Monument de Ninive, plate 159. In this plate the chief types of weapons figured in the reliefs at Khorsabad are brought together.

[434] Boscawen, Notes on an Ancient Assyrian Bronze Sword bearing a Cuneiform Inscription (in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iv. p. 347. with one plate).

[435] Botta, Monument de Ninive, plate 160.

[436] Sayce, The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Van, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xiv. p. 653. Mr. Pinches tells me that there is a similar text on the hollow border of the shield reproduced in our Fig. 225. Nothing is now to be distinguished, however, but characters that may be read, “Great king, king of ——”.

[437] See vol. i. page 394.

[438] We cannot too often thank the keepers of the Oriental antiquities in the British Museum for the trouble they took in enabling us to give a figure of this hitherto unpublished monument. The fragments, which had not yet been pieced together or exhibited in the galleries, were arranged expressly for our draughtsman.

[439] Nos. 385–391 in De Longpérier’s catalogue. These objects came from the collection of Clot-Bey, which was formed in Egypt but contained many things of Syrian origin. De Longpérier did not hesitate, on the evidence of their style, to class these objects as Assyrian, and any one who examines the motives of their decoration will be of his opinion. See his Œuvres, vol. i. p. 166.

[440] Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 394–395, and figs. 257, 329–331.

[441] De Longpérier, Notice des Antiquités assyriennes du Musée du Louvre, third edition, No. 212.

[442] Many more varieties of the same type will be found in the plate on which Botta reproduced the principal jewels figured in the Khorsabad reliefs (Monument de Ninive, plate 161). See also Layard, Discoveries, p. 597.

[443] The Arab jewellers still make use of similar moulds (Layard, Discoveries, p. 595).

[444] Layard, Discoveries, pp. 177–178.

[445] Layard, Discoveries, p. 597. The oldest mention of the pearl fisheries of the Persian Gulf is to be found in those fragments of Nearchus that have been preserved in the pages of Arrian (Indica, xxxviii. 7); but it is probable that the search for pearl oysters began in those waters many centuries before. The Assyrians, as we have seen, made use both of pearl and mother-of-pearl.

[446] J. Oppert, L’Ambre jaune chez les Assyriens (in the Recueil des Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à l’Archéologie egyptiennes et assyriennes, vol. ii, pp. 34 et seq.) M. Oppert’s rendering of the paraphrase which he believes to specify amber is not accepted by all Assyriologists.

[447] In the inventory, compiled with so much care by de Longpérier, of all the little objects in the Assyrian collection of the Louvre, and especially of those necklaces found by Botta in the sand under the great threshold at Khorsabad (from No. 295 to No. 380), there is not the slightest mention of amber. MM. Birch and Pinches tell me that the oriental department of their museum contains no trace of amber, with the exception of a few beads brought from Egypt, to which they have no means of assigning a date. They have never heard that any of the Mesopotamian excavations have brought the smallest vestige of this substance to light.

[448] Arrian, Expedition d’Alexandre, vi. 29.

[449] The reputation enjoyed by Chaldæan textiles all over western Asia is shown by a curious text in the book of Joshua (vii. 21). After the taking of Jericho, Achan, one of the Israelites, disobeyed orders and secreted a part of the spoil, consisting of two hundred shekels of silver, a wedge of gold, and “a goodly Babylonish garment.”

[450] “Pictas vestes apud Homerum fuisse (accipio), unde triumphales natæ. Acu acere id Phryges invenerunt, ideoque Phrygioniæ appellatæ sunt. Aurum intexere in eadem Asia invenit Attalus rex: unde nomen Attalicis. Colores diversos picturæ intexere Babylon maxime celebravit et nomen imposuit.” Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. § 74. Acu pingere, and for short, pingere, here meant to embroider. Picta or picturata vestis was a robe covered with embroideries.

[451] See Pliny, l. c. Lucretius, iv. 1026. Plautus, Stichus, Act ii, Scene ii, v. 54. Silius Italicus, xiv. 658. Martial, Epigr. xiv. 150. I borrow these citations from the first chapter of M. Eugène Müntz’s Histoire de la Tapisserie in the Bibliothèque de l’Enseignement des Beaux-Arts.

[452] See Vol. I. pp. 305–307.