Historic Ornament. James M Ward

      Fig. 163.—Assurbanipal Attacked by Lions, British Museum. (P. & C.)

      The bronze gates from Balâwât in the British Museum are examples of highly skilful repoussé work. Their palaces must have presented a gorgeous and glittering appearance in their rich colouring and enamelled brilliancy. Although not a single specimen of Assyrian weaving has been discovered, we have abundant and sufficient evidence from the sculptured patterns of textiles and embroideries on the kings’ robes and wall decorations that both weaving and embroidery must have been one of their most glorious arts.

      The Asiatic love of colour would lead us to suppose that these embroideries were excessively rich in colour (Figs. 162A, 163A, 164, 165) as they were in design.

      The details of this embroidery design (Fig. 162A) are well drawn, and the design is full of rich variety without heaviness or too much crowding. The king is seen twice represented in the circle doing homage to the sacred tree and to the winged disk; and in other places he is between two genii or deities; combats of lions and bulls, palmate borders, fir-cones, and spirals, with bands that divide the work in varied spaces, complete these rich designs in embroidery, which are among the very finest efforts of Assyrian decorative art.

      Fig. 162A.—Embroidery upon a Royal Mantle; from Layard. (P. & C.)

      Fig. 163A.—Embroidery on the upper part of a Royal Mantle; from Layard. (P. & C.)

      Details of embroidery patterns are shown at Figs. 164, 165.

      The sills or thresholds of the doors of the palaces were sometimes sculptured in low relief on large slabs of alabaster stone. The design is evidently copied from an embroidered carpet; perhaps the central part of the one given (Fig. 166) is a copy from a fabric woven in the loom, and the border, enlarged at Fig. 167, would have its original in embroidery.

      Fig. 164.—Detail of Embroidery; from Layard. (P. & C.)

      Fig. 165.—Detail of Embroidery; from Layard. (P. & C.)

      The figure of the plan and elevation of part of a Chaldean façade in enamelled bricks, from Warka, is decorated with patterns that, no doubt, had their origin in weaving and matting (Fig. 168). The surface of this façade is composed of terra-cotta cones, with their bases turned outwards. These bases were previously dipped in enamelled colours before they were inserted into the clay cement; so they form a kind of terra-cotta mosaic work (Loftus).

      Fig. 166.—Sill of a Door from Khorsabad: Length, 40 ins. (P. & C.)

      The land of Chaldea was devoid of stone for building purposes, but extremely rich in immense banks of clay, which was used for brick making from the earliest times in Chaldea. The Chaldean brick is rather more than one English foot square, and about four inches in thickness; of a dark red colour to light yellow. Nearly all of them have an inscription with the name of the king, &c. (Fig. 169).

      Fig. 167.—Fragment of Border of Fig. 166; from a Threshold of Khorsabad. (P. & C.)

      The brick from Erech, or ancient Warka, gives a good idea of one of the oldest forms of Chaldean writing known (Fig. 170). It consists of an abridgment of the representation of natural objects, as all alphabets in their original state were merely pictures or pictographs. This inscription shows the stage of conventional signs or ideographic writing before it underwent the change into the cuneiform, or wedge-shaped writing of the Assyrians.

      Fig. 168.—Plan and Elevation of Part of a Façade at Warka; from Loftus. (P. & C.)

      Some of the bricks were made wedge-shaped, for use in the building of arches and vaults. The common bricks were sometimes used in the crude state, or unburnt, and burnt. Enamelled bricks were greatly used in Chaldea, but the clay of which they were made was softer and more friable. This was used purposely, so that the enamel would sink deeper into the soft material, and thereby make a more lasting surface protection.

      Fig. 169.—Babylonian Brick, 16 ins. square, 4 ins. thick. (P. & C.)

      Fig. 170.—Brick from Erech. (P. & C.)

      Assyria copied most of her art and sciences from her older sister in civilisation, and had the advantage over Chaldea in a good supply of building stone, that formed the substructural bed for the clay deposits. This was a sulphate of chalk known as alabaster, grey in colour, and easy to work. The great wall slabs used for the bas-reliefs and the winged bulls and other statuary, were carved out of this material; but the Assyrians used bricks for the main structure of their buildings, like the Chaldeans. Timber was scarce in Assyria, but was used very much in the palaces. It was brought from the mountains of Upper Mesopotamia, on the left bank of the Tigris, and, later, cedar and other woods were transported from the forests of Lebanon for the beams of the palaces and temples. All kinds of metals, burnished and unburnished, were used as decorative accessories, especially by the Chaldeans.

      Fig. 171.—One of the Gates of the Harumat, Dur-Sarginu. (M.)

      The historians’ descriptions, the foundations that have been excavated, and the sculptured buildings on the bas-reliefs, are the materials, together with well-preserved fragments of architecture, which archæologists and architects have used to enable them to restore some of the wonderful temples and palaces of ancient Assyria (Fig. 172).

      Fig. 172.—Interior of a Temple, after Layard’s Restoration.

      The bird’s-eye view of the palace of Dur-Sarginu will give a good idea of the typical Assyrian palaces (Fig. 174), and the triumphal gate with its man-headed winged bulls at the base and sides (Fig. 173), and also the other gate at Fig. 172, both with their crenallated battlements, serve to show the imposing character of these edifices. It will be noticed from the bird’s-eye view and the gateways that the general character of Assyrian architecture was rectangular in the highest degree. The arch and vaulted structures were known to the Assyrians, who used them to great advantage (Figs. 175 and 250), and much more so than the Egyptians, although the latter people occasionally employed them.

      Fig. 173.—Triumphal Gate at the entrance of the Palace. (M.)

      The Chaldeans, as would naturally be expected, used the arch construction very much in their brick buildings, as it would be the only means

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