The fictile art of the Assyrians in its higher branches, as employed for directly artistic purposes, has been already considered; but a few pages may be now devoted to the humbler divisions of the subject, where the useful preponderates over the ornamental. The pottery of Assyria bears a general resemblance in shape, form, and use to that of Egypt; but still it has certain specific differences. According to Mr. Birch, it is, generally speaking, “finer in its paste, brighter in its color, employed in thinner masses, and for purposes not known in Egypt.” Abundant and excellent clay is furnished by the valley of the Tigris, more especially by those parts of it which are subject to the annual inundation. The chief employment of this material by the Assyrians was for bricks, which were either simply dried in the sun, or exposed to the action of fire in a kiln. In this latter case they seem to have been uniformly slack-baked; they are light for their size, and are of a pale-red color. The clay of which the bricks were composed was mixed with stubble or vegetable fibre, for the purpose of holding it together—a practice common to the Assyrians with the Egyptians and the Babylonians. This fibre still appears in the sun-dried bricks, but has been destroyed by the heat of the kiln in the case of the baked bricks, leaving behind it, however, in the clay traces of the stalks or stems. The size and shape of the bricks vary. They are most commonly square, or nearly so; but occasionally the shape more resembles that of the ancient Egyptian and modern English brick, the width being about half the length, and the thickness half or two-thirds of the width. The greatest size to which the square bricks attain is a length and width of about two feet. From this maximum they descend by manifold gradations to a minimum of one foot. The oblong bricks are smaller; they seldom much exceed a foot in length, and in width vary from six to seven and a half inches. Whatever the shape and size of the bricks, their thickness is nearly uniform, the thinnest being as much as three inches in thickness, and the thickest not more than four inches or four and a half. Each brick was made in a wooden frame or mould. Most of the baked bricks were inscribed, not however like the Chaldaean, the Egyptian, and the Babylonian, with an inscription in a small square or oval depression near the centre of one of the broad faces, but with one which either covered the whole of one such face, or else ran along the edge. It is uncertain whether the inscription was stamped upon the bricks by a single impression, or whether it was inscribed by the potter with a triangular style. Mr. Birch thinks the former was the means used, “as the trouble of writing upon each brick would have been endless.” Mr. Layard, however, is of a different opinion.
In speaking of the Assyrian writing, some mention has been made of the terra cotta cylinders and tablets, which in Assyria replaced the parchment and papyrus of other nations, being the most ordinary writing material in use through the country. The purity and fineness of the material thus employed is very remarkable, as well as its strength, of which advantage was taken to make the cylinders hollow, and thus at once to render them cheaper and more portable. The terra cotta of the cylinders and tablets is sometimes unglazed; sometimes the natural surface has been covered with a “vitreous silicious glaze or white coating.” The color varies, being sometimes a bright polished brown, sometimes a pale yellow, sometimes pink, and sometimes a very dark tint, nearly black. The most usual color however for cylinders is pale yellow, and for tablets light red, or pink. There is no doubt that in both these cases the characters were impressed separately by the hand, a small metal style of rod being used for the purpose.
Terra cotta vessels, glazed and unglazed, were in common use among the Assyrians, for drinking and other domestic purposes. They comprised vases, lamps, jugs, amphorae, saucers, jars, etc. [PLATE LXXX., Fig. 2.] The material of the vessels is fine, though generally rather yellow in tone. The shapes present no great novelty, being for the most part such as are found both in the old Chaldaean tombs, and in ordinary Roman sepulchres. Among the most elegant are the funeral urns discovered by M. Botta at Khorsabad, which are with a small opening at top, a short and very scanty pedestal, and two raised rings, one rather delicately chased, by way of ornament. [PLATE LXXXI., Fig. 2.] Another graceful form is that of the large jars uncovered at Nimrud [PLATE LXXXII., Fig. 1], of which Mr. Layard gives a representation. Still more tasteful are some of the examples which occur upon the bas-reliefs, and seemingly represent earthen vases. Among these may be particularized a lustral ewer resting in a stand supported by bulls’ feet, which appears in front of a temple at Khorsabad [PLATE LXXXI., Fig. 3], and a wine vase (see [PLATE LXXXI., Fig. 4]) of ample dimensions, which is found in a banquet scene at the same place. Some of the lamps are also graceful enough, and seem to be the prototypes out of which were developed the more elaborate productions of the Greeks. [PLATE LXXXII., Fig. 2.] Others are more simple, being without ornament of any kind, and nearly resembling a modern tea-pot (see No., IV. [PLATE LXXXII., Fig. 2.]) The glazed pottery is, for the most part, tastefully colored. An amphora, with twisted arms, found at Nimrud (see [PLATE LXXXIII., Fig. 1]) is of two colors, a warm yellow, and a cold bluish green. The green predominates in the upper, the yellow in the under portion; but there is a certain amount of blending or mottling in the mid-region, which has a very pleasant effect. A similarly mottled character is presented by two other amphorae from the same place, where the general hue is a yellow which varies in intensity, and the mottling is with a violet blue. In some cases the colors are not blended, but sharply defined by lines, as in a curious spouted cup figured by Mr. Layard, and in several fragmentary specimens. Painted patterns are not uncommon upon the glazed pottery, though upon the unglazed they are scarcely ever found. The most usual colors are blue, yellow, and white; brown, purple, and lilac have been met with occasionally. These colors are thought to be derived chiefly from metallic oxides, over which was laid as a glazing a vitreous silicated substance. On the whole, porcelain of this fine kind is rare in the Assyrian remains, and must be regarded as a material that was precious and used by few.
Assyrian glass is among the most beautiful of the objects which have been exhumed. M. Botta compared it to certain fabrics of Venice and Bohemia, into which a number sit different colors are artificially introduced. But a careful analysis has shown that the lovely prismatic hues which delight us in the Assyrian specimens, varying under different lights with all the delicacy and brilliancy of the opal, are due, not to art, but to the wonder-working hand of time, which, as it destroys the fabric, compassionately invests it with additional grace and beauty. Assyrian glass was either transparent or stained with a single uniform color. It was composed, in the usual way, by a mixture of sand or silex with alkalis, and, like the Egyptian, appears to have been first rudely fashioned into shape by the blowpipe. It was then more carefully shaped, and, where necessary, hollowed out by a turning machine, the Marks of which are sometimes still visible. The principal specimens which have been discovered are small bottles and bowls, the former not more than three or four inches high, the latter from four to five inches in diameter, [PLATE LXXXIII., Fig. 4.] The vessels are occasionally inscribed with the name of a king, as is the case in the famous vase of Sargon, found by Mr. Layard at Nimrud, which is here figured. [PLATE LXXXIII., Fig. 2.] This is the earliest known specimen of transparent glass, which is not found in Egypt until the time of the Psammetichi. The Assyrians used also opaque glass, which they colored, sometimes red, with the suboxide of copper, sometimes white, sometimes of other hues. They seem not to have been able to form masses of glass of any considerable size; and thus the employment of the material must have been limited to a few ornamental, rather than useful, purposes. A curious specimen is that of a pipe or tube, honey-combed externally, which Mr. Layard exhumed at Koyunjik, and of which the cut [PLATE LXXXIII., Fig. 1] is a rough representation.
An object found at Nimrud, in close connection with several glass vessels, is of a character sufficiently similar to render its introduction in this place not inappropriate. This is a lens composed of rock crystal, about an inch and a half in diameter, and nearly an inch thick, having one plain and one convex surface, and somewhat rudely shaped and polished which, however gives a tolerably distinct focus at the distance of 4 1/2 inches from the plane side, and which may have been used either as a magnifying glass or to concentrate the rays of the sun. The form is slightly oval, the longest diameter being one and six-tenths inch, the shortest one and four-tenths inch. The thickness is not uniform, but greater on one side than on the other. The plane surface is ill-polished and scratched, the convex one, not polished on a concave spherical disk, but fashioned on a lapidary’s wheel, or by some method equally rude. As a burn, glass the lens has no great power; but it magnifies fairly, and may have been of great use to those who inscribed, or to those who sought to decipher, the royal memoirs. It is the only object of the kind that has been found among the remains of antiquity, though it cannot he doubled that lenses were known and were used as burning glasses by the Greeks.