The principle of the decoration as a whole is almost identical with that of the bronze platters. A central motive is surrounded by parallel bands of ornaments in which groups of figures are symmetrically disposed. Outside this again are narrow borders composed of forms borrowed chiefly from the vegetable kingdom, such as conventional flowers and buds, palmettes, and rosettes. The figures are strongly religious in character; here we find winged genii, like those about the palace doors, adoring the sacred tree, floating in space, or playing with lions (see Fig. 253); in another corner the king himself is introduced, standing between two monitory genii, or in act of homage to the winged disk and mystic palm.
All these images are skilfully arranged, in compartments bounded by gracefully curving lines. The designer has understood how to cover his surface without crowding or confusion, and has shown a power of invention and a delicate taste that can hardly be surpassed by any other product of Mesopotamian art. There is no trace of the heaviness to which we alluded in our section on jewelry.
Fig. 256.—Detail of embroidery; from Layard.
Fig. 257.—Detail of embroidery; from Layard.
Fig. 258.—Detail of embroidery; from Layard.
The impression made by these compositions as a whole is intensified when we examine their separate details. The variety of the combinations employed is very striking. Sometimes the ornament is entirely linear and vegetable in its origin. Look, for instance, at the kind of square brooch worn on his breast by one of the winged genii at Nimroud (Fig. 255). The sacred tree surrounded by a square frame of rosettes and wavy lines occupies the centre, the palmette throws out its wide fronds at one end. In another example we find a human-headed lion, mitred and bearded, struggling with an eagle-headed genius. On the right of our woodcut (Fig. 256) a bud or flower like that of the silene inflata, hangs over the band of embroidery; it is a pendent from the necklace. Sometimes we find real combined with fictitious animals. In Fig. 257 two griffins have brought down a spotted deer. Elsewhere we see a winged bull perched upon a large rosette in an attitude that is at once unexpected and not ungraceful (Fig. 258). Finally the king himself or a personage resembling him is often represented struggling with fictitious monsters (Fig. 259). In this figure notice the rosettes that are scattered promiscuously over the field. We shall encounter the same prodigality of ornament in the oldest Greek vases, whose decorators seem to have been afraid to leave a corner of their surface unoccupied.