Fig. 23.—Chaldæan statuette in bronze (Louvre).
III. Minor Sculpture and the Industrial Arts.
The Chaldæans could work in bronze as skilfully as in stone. M. de Sarzec has collected some bronze figures which, compared with other monuments already secured, allow us to fix some precise landmarks in the gradual development of the art of casting and chiselling metals in Chaldæa. A certain statuette of a man or woman ([fig. 23]) may be considered the most rudimentary attempt.[21] It has simply the shape of a cylindrical stem, the upper part of which is furnished with two arms and a human head like the xoana of the Greeks. This head, surmounted by small horns, is strangely barbarous; it recalls the art of the men of the bronze age and the most rustic of the Cypriote terra-cottas. Progress is manifest in other
Fig. 24.—Chaldæan statuette (Louvre).