FIG. 20.—ASSYRIAN ORNAMENT.
The purely conventional ornaments mentioned above—the rosette, guilloche, and lotus-flower, and probably also the palmette, were derived from Egyptian originals. They were treated, however, in a quite new spirit and adapted to the special materials and uses of their environment. Thus the form of the palmette, even if derived, as is not unlikely, from the Egyptian lotus-motive, was assimilated to the more familiar palm-forms of Assyria (Fig. 20).
Assyrian architecture never rivalled the Egyptian in grandeur or constructive power, in seriousness, or the higher artistic qualities. It did, however, produce imposing results with the poorest resources, and in its use of the arch and its development of ornamental forms it furnished prototypes for some of the most characteristic features of later Asiatic art, which profoundly influenced both Greek and Byzantine architecture.
MONUMENTS: The most important Chaldæan and Assyrian monuments of which there are extant remains, have already been enumerated in the text. It is therefore unnecessary to duplicate the list here.
[4.] This is denied by some recent writers, so far as the Chaldæans are concerned, and is not intended here to apply to the Accadians and Summerians of primitive Chaldæa.
[5.] See Fergusson, Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis, for an ingenious but unsubstantiated argument for the use of columns in Assyrian palaces.
[CHAPTER V.]
PERSIAN, LYCIAN AND JEWISH ARCHITECTURE.
Books Recommended: As before, Babelon; Bliss, Excavations at Jerusalem. Reber. Also Dieulafoy, L’Art antique de la Perse. Fellows, Account of Discoveries in Lycia. Fergusson, The Temple at Jerusalem. Flandin et Coste, Perse ancienne. Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Persia; History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria, and Lycia; History of Art in Sardinia and Judæa. Texier, L’Arménie et la Perse; L’Asie Mineure. De Vogüé, Le Temple de Jérusalem.
PERSIAN ARCHITECTURE. With the Persians, who under Cyrus (536 B.C.) and Cambyses (525 B.C.) became the masters of the Orient, the Aryan race superseded the Semitic, and assimilated in new combinations the forms it borrowed from the Assyrian civilization. Under the Achæmenidæ (536 to 330 B.C.) palaces were built in Persepolis and Susa of a splendor and majesty impossible in Mesopotamia, and rivalling the marvels in the Nile Valley. The conquering nation of warriors who had overthrown the Egyptians and Assyrians was in turn conquered by the arts of its vanquished foes, and speedily became the most luxurious of all nations. The Persians were not great innovators in art; but inhabiting a land of excellent building resources, they were able to combine the Egyptian system of interior columns with details borrowed from Assyrian art, and suggestions, derived most probably from the general use in Persia and Central Asia, of wooden posts or columns as intermediate supports. Out of these elements they evolved an architecture which has only become fully known to us since the excavations of M. and Mme. Dieulafoy at Susa in 1882.