Fig. 202.—Dagger hilt. Ivory. Actual size. Louvre.
Ivory was used for many purposes; we have described how it was employed upon ceilings and doors;[405] we have just seen how it helped to ornament articles of furniture; it also supplied the material for many useful and ornamental objects, such as sceptres, boxes, cups, knife-handles, etc. (Fig. 202). Did the Assyrians understand how to give still greater variety to the appearance of these things by staining the ivory? At first sight it might appear that they did. Among the specimens in the British Museum some have the fine yellow colour of the Renaissance ivories; others are white, grey, brown or even quite black. These tints, as I myself ascertained, are not superficial; they extend entirely through the pieces. But we do not believe they were produced by any artificial process. If the Assyrians had understood how to dye ivory, would they not have dyed it red and blue as well as the colours above mentioned? But they did nothing of the sort. The tints in question are, then, to be otherwise explained. They are not the direct result of fire. Wherever the flame has touched the ivory it has calcined it, and left nothing but a whitish friable substance. They may, however, have been caused by the long continued impregnation with smoke and carbon received from a soil filled with ashes and washed by the rain. An effect of the same kind is produced upon objects buried in a peaty soil. In any case several of the fragments that have come down to us are of a fine, glossy black, like that of ebony.[406]
In beds, tables, chairs, and footstools the framework was of wood and the decoration of metal, an important rôle being assigned to incrustations of ivory, of lapis lazuli, of crystals, and other materials of the kind. But there were also pieces of furniture whose purpose made them well fitted to be carried out entirely in bronze; such, for example, were the tripods on which the braziers or censers, used in sacrifices, were placed. We have seen these figured in the reliefs (Vol. I., Figs. 68 and 155); the Louvre possesses one that was found at Babylon (Fig. 203). It is formed of three stems very slightly inclined inwards, and bound together at the top by a circle decorated with incised ornaments and four rams’ heads in relief. Towards the bottom they are held together by three straight cross-bars, the points of junction with the legs being masked by three human faces. The feet are shaped after those of oxen. Cords are twisted round the point of junction of foot and leg, then crossed in front of the fetlock and knotted at the back.[407]
The chafing-dishes placed upon these bronze tripods were of the same material. Chaldæans and Assyrians, although they neglected to give their earthen vessels any great beauty of form or richness of decoration, attached great importance to their metal vases. The bronze vessel seems to have been one of the chief objects of luxury both in the temple and the palace. The peculiarities offered by certain of these objects and the interest of the problems they suggest, make it necessary that they should be studied separately and in some detail.
Fig. 203.—Bronze tripod. 13 inches high. Louvre.
Figs. 204, 205.—Metal vases. From Layard.
