The pigments were not applied to an entirely flat surface. Prior to the reception of the coloring matter and the glaze, each brick was modelled by the hand, the figures being carefully traced out, and a slight elevation given to the more important objects. A very low bas-relief was thus produced, to which the colors were subsequently applied, and the brick was then baked in the furnace.
It is conjectured that the bricks were not modelled singly and separately. A large mass of clay was (it is thought) taken, sufficient to contain a whole subject, or at any rate a considerable portion of a subject. On this the modeller made out his design in low relief. The mass of clay was then cut up into bricks, and each brick was taken and painted separately with the proper colors, after which they were all placed in the furnace and baked. When baked, they were restored to their original places in the design, a thin layer of the finest mortar serving to keep them in place.
From the mimetic art of the Babylonians, and the branches of knowledge connected with it, we may now pass to the purely mechanical arts—as the art by which hard stones were cut, and those of agriculture, metallurgy, pottery, weaving, carpet-making, embroidery, and the like.
The stones shaped, bored, and engraved by Babylonian artisans were not merely the softer and more easily worked kinds, as alabaster, serpentine, and lapis-lazuli, but also the harder sorts-cornelian, agate, quartz, jasper, sienite, loadstone, and green felspar or amazon-stone. These can certainly not have been cut without emery, and scarcely without such devices as rapidly revolving points, or discs, of the kind used by modern lapidaries. Though the devices are in general rude, the work is sometimes exceedingly delicate, and implies a complete mastery over tools and materials, as well as a good deal of artistic power. As far as the mechanical part of the art goes, the Babylonians may challenge comparison with the most advanced of the nations of antiquity; they decidedly excel the Egyptians, and fall little, if at all, short of the Greeks and Romans.
The extreme minuteness of the work in some of the Babylonian seals and gems raises a suspicion that they must have been engraved by the help of a powerful magnifying-glass. A lens has been found in Assyria; and there is much reason to believe that the convenience was at least as well known in the lower country. Glass was certainly in use, and was cut into such shapes as were required. It is at any rate exceedingly likely that magnifying-glasses, which were undoubtedly known to the Greeks in the time of Aristophanes, were employed by the artisans of Babylon during the most flourishing period of the Empire.
Of Babylonian metal-work we have scarcely any direct means of judging. The accounts of ancient authors imply that the Babylonians dealt freely with the material, using gold and silver for statues, furniture, and utensils, bronze for gates and images, and iron sometimes for the latter. We may assume that they likewise employed bronze and iron for tools and weapons, since those metals were certainly so used by the Assyrians. Lead was made of service in building; where iron was also employed, if great strength was needed. The golden images are said to have been sometimes solid, in which case we must suppose them to have been cast in a mold; but undoubtedly in most cases the gold was a mere external covering, and was applied in plates, which were hammered into shape upon some cheaper substance below. Silver was no doubt used also in plates, more especially when applied externally to walls, or internally to the woodwork of palaces; but the silver images, ornamental figures, and utensils of which we hear, were most probably solid. The bronze works must have been remarkable. We are told that both the town and the palace gates were of this material, and it is implied that the latter were too heavy to be opened in the ordinary manner. Castings on an enormous scale would be requisite for such purposes; and the Babylonians must thus have possessed the art of running into a single mold vast masses of metal. Probably the gates here mentioned were solid; but occasionally, it would seem, the Babylonians had gates of a different kind, composed of a number of perpendicular bars, united by horizontal ones above and below [as in PLATE XIX., Fig. 2.]. They had also, it would appear, metal gateways of a similar character.
The metal-work of personal ornaments, such as bracelets and armlets, and again that of dagger handles, seems to have resembled the work of the Assyrians.
Small figures in bronze were occasionally cast by the Babylonians, which were sometimes probably used as amulets, while perhaps more generally they wore mere ornaments of houses, furniture, and the like. Among these may be noticed figures of dogs in a sitting posture, much resembling the dog represented among the constellations, figures of men, grotesque in character, and figures of monsters. An interesting specimen, which combines a man and a monster, was found by Sir R. Ker Porter at Babylon. [PLATE XX., Fig. 1.]
