We may presume that, besides bronze, the Assyrians used, to a certain extent, silver and gold as materials for ornamental metal-work. The earrings, bracelets, and armlets worn by the kings and the great officers of state were probably of the more valuable metal, while the similar ornaments worn by those of minor may have been of silver. [PLATE LXXVI., Fig. 3.] One solitary specimen only of either class has been found; but Mr. Layard discovered several moulds, with tasteful designs for earrings, both at Nimrud and at Koyunjik; and the sculptures show that both in these and the other personal ornaments a good deal of artistic excellence was exhibited. The earrings are frequent in the form of a cross, and are sometimes delicately chased. The armlets and bracelets generally terminate in the heads of rams or bulls, which seem to have been rendered with spirit and taste.
By one or two instances it appears that the Assyrians knew how to inlay one metal with another. [PLATE LXXVI, Fig. 5.] The specimens discovered are scarcely of an artistic character, being merely winged scarabaei, outlined in gold on a bronze ground [PLATE LXXVI., Fig. 4.] The work, however, is delicate, and the form very much more true to nature than that which prevailed in Egypt.
The ivories of the Assyrians are inferior both to their metal castings and to their bas-reliefs. They consist almost entirely of a single series, discovered by Mr. Layard in a chamber of the North-West Palace at Nimrud, in the near vicinity of slabs on which was engraved the name of Sargon. The most remarkable point connected with them is the thoroughly Egyptian character of the greater number which at first sight have almost the appearance of being importations from the valley of the Nile. Egyptian profiles, head-dresses, fashions of dressing the hair, ornaments, attitudes, meet us at every turn; while sometimes we find the representations of Egyptian gods, and in two cases hieroglyphics within cartouches. (See [PLATE LXXVIII.]) A few specimens only are of a distinctly Assyrian type, as a fragment of a panel, figured by Mr. Layard [PLATE LXXVII., Fig. 1], and one or two others, in which the guilloche border appears. These carvings are usually mere low reliefs, occupying small panels or tablets, which were mortised or glued to the woodwork of furniture. They were sometimes inlaid in parts with blue grass, or with blue and green pastes let into the ivory, and at the same time decorated with gilding. Now and then the relief is tolerably high, and presents fragments of forms which seem to have had some artistic merit. The best of these is the fore part of a lion walking among reeds (p. 373), which presents analogies with the early art of Asia Minor. [PLATE LXXVII., Fig. 3.] One or two stags’ heads have likewise been found, designed and wrought with much spirit and delicacy. [PLATE LXXVII., Fig. 3.] It is remarked that several of the specimens show not only a considerable acquaintance with art, but also an intimate knowledge of the method of working in ivory. One head of a lion was “of singular beauty,” but unfortunately it fell to pieces at the very moment of discovery.
It is possible that some of the objects here described may be actual specimens of Egyptian art, sent to Sargon as tribute or presents, or else carried off as plunder in his Egyptian expedition. The appearance, however, which even the most Egyptian of them present, on a close examination, is rather that of Assyrian works imitated from Egyptian models than of genuine Egyptian productions. For instance, in the tablet figured on the page opposite, where we see hieroglyphics within a cartouche, the onk or symbol of life, the solar disk, the double ostrich-plume, the long hair-dress called namms, and the tam or kukupha sceptre, all unmistakable Egyptian features—we observe a style of drapery which is quite unknown in Egypt, while in several respects it is Assyrian, or at least Mesopotamian. It is scanty, like that of all Assyrian robed figures; striped, like the draperies of the Chaldaeans and Babylonians: fringed with a broad fringe elaborately colored, as Assyrian fringes are known to have been, and it has large hanging sleeves also fringed, a fashion which appears once or twice upon the Nimrud sculptures. [PLATE LXXVII, Fig. 4.] But if this specimen, notwithstanding its numerous and striking Egyptian features, is rightly regarded as Mesopotamian, it would seem to follow that the rest of the series must still more decidedly be assigned to native genius.
