Fig. 200.—Stool; from Layard.
These elaborate decorations are found not only on the royal thrones but also on the footstools which are their necessary complement (Fig. 199), and on the seats without backs which were used, perhaps, instead of the more unwieldy throne when the king was away from his capital (Fig. 200). The footstool has lions’-claw feet, the more important object has rams’ heads at each end of the upper cross-bar;[395] the leg shows the capital with drooping leaves noticed above; volutes, opposed to each other as in the capital from Persepolis, ornament the cross-bar which holds the uprights together. In this piece of furniture, where the sculptor has confined himself to the scrupulous reproduction of his model, we may see how these objects were upholstered. A cushion of some woven material with long bright-coloured woollen fringes, was fitted to the seat. The whole is characterized by happy proportions and severe simplicity of design. We know from the Sippara tablet that even the gods were sometimes content with such a seat (Vol. I., Fig. 71). The figures of Izdubar and Hea-bani are there introduced between the uprights of Samas’s stool.
One of the most complex and effective of all these examples of decorative art is the throne upon which Sennacherib is seated before the captured city of Lachish (Fig. 47). The space between the uprights is occupied by three rows of small male figures, who with their uplifted arms and heads gently thrown back, seem to bear the weight of the cross pieces. This naïve device is also to be met with in the sculptures of Persia; it is suggestive of the absolute power which places the king so far above his subjects that nothing is left for them but to support and add to the edifice of his grandeur.[396]
Bronze and wood were not the only materials used in these objects of regal luxury. As in the throne of Solomon,[397] the glory of gold and the creamy whiteness of ivory were mingled with the sombre tones of bronze. This is proved by the thrones from Van, and it was noticed by the explorers of the Assyrian ruins; small fragments of ivory were mixed with the pieces of bronze that have been recognized as the débris of furniture.[398] Some pieces of rock-crystal, found in the palace of Sennacherib, appear also to have helped to ornament a chair.[399]
It is easy to guess how ivory was used on these objects. Look at the throne of Sennacherib (Fig. 47), the couch of Assurnazirpal, the table on which his cup is placed and the high chair of his queen (Fig. 127). The cross-bars and uprights are divided into numerous small panels or divisions; each panel may have inframed a plaque of carved ivory.
Were all these plaques made in Mesopotamia? or were they imported from Phœnicia and Egypt? The frankly Egyptian character of some among the tablets we have reproduced (see Vol. I. Figs. 129 and 130; and above, Figs. 57, 58 and 59) forbid us to deny that some of the ivories were imported;[400] but we believe that to have been the exception rather than the rule. We know both from the sculptured reliefs and from actual finds that ivory was brought into Assyria in its rough state. Layard found some elephant’s tusks in the royal houses at Nimroud,[401] and we see others brought by tributaries as presents to the king, both in the reliefs of Assurnazirpal’s palace,[402] and in those of Shalmaneser’s obelisk.[403]
Hence it appears probable that ivory was worked at Nineveh and Babylon, and that probability is changed into a certainty when we examine the other ivories in the same collection. Although not a few of the ivories chiselled in relief offer motives that are strange to Mesopotamian art, it is not so with a series of tablets on which the designs are carried out in pure line and with extreme refinement (Fig. 201). Figures and ornaments are purely Assyrian; winged genii wearing the horned tiara, dressed as in the reliefs, and surrounded with the rosettes and cable pattern to which we have so often referred, and other motives of the same kind. Among the latter may be noticed the variety of knop and flower border that we find so often in the painted and enamelled decoration, in which the knop is replaced by a disk (see Vol. I., Figs. 117 and 118).
Fig. 201.—Ivory panel. Actual size. British Museum. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
We believe the truth to be as follows. A considerable quantity of Indian ivory entered Mesopotamia by the Persian Gulf and the caravan routes. It was there carved by native artists into the various shapes required, but, especially during the heyday of the Assyrian monarchy, it was far from supplying the whole demand. Africa, through Phœnicia, was called upon to make up the deficiency. But the African ivory was not imported in its raw state, it came in in the form of skilfully chiselled plaques that only required mounting; the merchants, through whom the trade was carried on, delivered sets of these plaques for beds, or chairs, or what not. We thus get at some reason for the difference in style between the tablets in relief and those engraved by the point. The latter represent native art; in the former, where we so often see the characteristic gods, sphinxes, costumes, head-dresses, and even cartouches of the Egyptian monuments, we may recognize the product of the Nile delta, or even of Tyre and Sidon. The inscriptions on several fragments seem to confirm this hypothesis. I have seen no ivory tablets with cuneiform characters, but plenty with those of the Phœnician alphabet.[404]