Fig. 15.—Chaldæan head (Louvre).
In a neighbouring tell M. de Sarzec found another head of the same size and of an equally interesting type. It is less severe in aspect than the preceding one, but carved with equal skill. The face is round and almost smiling, the chin broad and powerful, the nose flat. The very original head-dress is composed of a woollen cap fitting closely to the head, and furnished with a thick border, which, turning up, forms a sort of crown; the meshes of the woollen tissue are conventionally marked by a number of symmetrical rolls. Even at the present day in Lower Chaldæa the Christian priests of the Chaldæan rite envelop their heads in a turban of black stuff, which allows of a similar arrangement.[18]
Fig. 16.—Chaldæan statue (Louvre).
As for the headless statues whether seated or standing, they have all the same characteristics, exhibit an identical type, and are incontestably of the same school of sculpture. Here is a personage seated on a sort of stool not fully carved out; he recalls involuntarily the Greek statues of the sacred way of the Branchidæ at Miletus, and is in the same religious attitude. A cloak without sleeves is crossed over his breast and thrown back over his shoulder; a handsome fringe, delicately