Fig. 186.—Goblet. Height, 5 inches. Louvre.
Fig. 187.—Fragment of a vase. Actual size. British Museum.
In all these fragments the decoration is purely geometrical; it is composed of lines, spots, and other motives having no relation to the organic world. A step in advance of this seems, however, to have been taken. On some other fragments from the same districts, files of roughly-suggested birds appear upon the bands and between opposed triangles (Figs. 187 and 188). We shall find the same motive in Cyprus, at Mycenæ, and at Athens, in the pottery forming the transition between the purely geometrical period and that in which imitation of life begins. In a fragment which is tantalizingly small we catch a glimpse of three lion’s paws playing with a chess-board ornament. A row of cuneiform characters runs along the lower part (Fig. 189).
Figs. 188, 189.—Fragments of vases. Actual sizes. British Museum.
These fragments, taken altogether, show that a certain effort was made to produce decorated pottery towards the end of the Assyrian period. Why was the attempt not carried farther? Why were earthenware vases not covered with ornamental designs that might be compared for richness and variety with those chiselled in or beaten out of stone or wood, ivory or metal? The reason may, we think, be guessed. Clay appeared such a common material that they never thought of using it for objects of luxury, for anything that required great skill in the making, or in which its proprietor could take any pride. When they wanted fine vases they turned to bronze; bronze could be gilded, it could be damascened with gold and silver, and when so treated was more pleasing to the eye and more provocative of thought and ingenuity on the part of the artist than mere clay. It was reserved for Greece to erect the painted vase into a work of art. Her taste alone was able to make us forget the poverty of the material in the nobility of the form and the beauty of the decoration; we shall see that her artists were the first to give to an earthenware jar or cup a value greater, for the true connoisseur, than if they were of massive gold or silver.
During the period on which we are now engaged, the Mesopotamians sometimes attempted to cover their vases with enamel. The British Museum has several specimens of a pottery covered with a blue glaze like that of the Egyptian faïence.[364] Here and there the blue has turned green under the action of time. One of the vases reproduced above (Fig. 180) belongs to this class. Vases of the same kind, covered with a rather thick layer of blue and yellow enamel, have been found among the rubbish in the Birs-Nimroud at Babylon,[365] but it is difficult to fix an exact date for them with any confidence. On the other hand, it is generally agreed that the large earthenware coffins brought from the funerary mounds of Lower Chaldæa are very much later. In style the small figures with which they are decorated resemble the medals and rock sculptures of the Parthians and Sassanids.[366]
The art of making glass, which dates in Egypt at least as far back as the first Theban dynasty,[367] was invented in Mesopotamia, or imported into it, at a very early period. No glass objects have been found in the oldest Chaldæan tombs, but they abound in the ruins of the Assyrian palaces. A great number of small glass bottles, resembling the Greek alabastron or aryballos in shape,[368] have been dug up; many of them have been made brilliantly iridescent by their long sojourn in the earth.[369] A vase found by Layard at Nimroud, and engraved with Sargon’s name just below the neck, is generally quoted as the oldest known example of transparent glass (see Fig. 190).[370] It has been blown solid, and then the inside cut out by means of an instrument which has left easily-visible traces of its passage; this instrument was no doubt mounted on a lathe. Sir H. Layard believes, however, that many of the glass objects he found are much older, and date from the very beginning of the Assyrian monarchy, but their material is opaque and coloured.[371] Some bracelets of black glass, which were dug up at Kouyundjik, prove that common jewelry was sometimes made of that material; glass beads, sometimes round, sometimes flat, have also been found.[372] A glass cylinder or tube, of unknown use, was found by Layard at Kouyundjik; it is covered with a decoration made up of lozenges with a concave surface (Fig. 191).