Such was the logical consequence of the natural difference of the environments in which the empires of Egypt and Assyria, those two poles around which the whole of the ancient East gravitates, were evolved. On the banks of the Nile, stone suited for sculpture exists in profusion, and as there was abundant material in the hands of the artist, he was able to devote himself to incessant experiments, essays and trials, which, progressively repeated from generation to generation, only stopped at the threshold of Greek art. In Mesopotamia there was little or no stone to carve; it was only rarely and at great expense that precious blocks were brought with much trouble from a long distance, and these were too dear and too scarce to allow of numerous experiments.
§ II. Bas-Reliefs.
To conceal the poverty of the material of their brick or clay structures, the Assyrians, as we have said, conceived the idea of lining the walls with thin slabs of limestone or gypseous alabaster of a yellowish shade, which they extracted at small expense from the neighbouring mountains of Nineveh. These slabs could be sculptured and polished with marvellous ease.
Fig. 66.—Assur-nasir-pal sacrificing a bull (Bas-relief in the British Museum).
The most ancient bas-reliefs that the excavations in Assyria have brought to light come from the palace of Assur-nasir-pal (B.C. 882-857) at Calah (Nimroud). What a distance there is between this epoch and that of the ruins of Tello! But from the reign of this prince to the fall of Nineveh, towards the end of the seventh century—that is to say, during three centuries—there is an abundance of documents for the history of sculpture; they have been disinterred principally from the palaces of Assur-nasir-pal, Shalmaneser, Samsi-Rammanu, Rammanu-nirari, Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal,—palaces which these princes had built in order to immortalise their fame, and the walls of which they covered with the scenes of their valour and the narrative of their exploits.