Fig. 123.—Detail of enamelled archivolt. Khorsabad. From Place.
The other composition is to be found on a plinth in the doorway of the harem at Khorsabad. This plinth was about twenty-three feet long, and rather more than three feet high. Its ornament was repeated on both sides of the doorway.[377] It consisted of a lion, an eagle, a bull, and a plough (Plate XV). Upon the returning angles the king appears, standing, on the one side with his head bare, on the other covered with a tiara. The background is blue, as in the city gates; green was only used for the leaves of the tree, in which some have recognized a fig-tree.
Fig. 124.—Detail from enamelled archivolt. Khorsabad. From Place.
In these two examples the decoration is of an extreme simplicity; the figures are not engaged in any common action; there is, in fact, no picture. The artist sometimes appears to have been more ambitious. Thus Layard found at Nimroud the remains of a decoration in which the painter had apparently attempted to rival the sculptor: he had represented a battle scene analogous to those we find in such plenty in the bas-reliefs.[378] A similar motive may be found in a better preserved fragment belonging to the same structure (Plate XIV, Fig. 1).[379] A single brick bears four personages, a god, whose arms only are left, the king, his patera in hand, offering a libation, an eunuch with bow and quiver, and finally an officer with a lance. George Smith also found a fragment of the same kind at Nimroud (see [Fig. 125]). It shows the figure of a soldier, from the knees upwards, armed with bow and lance, and standing by the wheel of a chariot. Above his head are the remains of an inscription which must have been continued on the next brick. The word warriors may still be deciphered.[380] This figure may have formed part of some attempt on the part of the decorator to narrate in colour some of the exploits of the king for whom the palace was built.
