At Fâra an exquisite head of a Markhur goat was discovered (cf. Fig. [40], B); the head itself is made of copper, but the eyes were made of shell, the white of them being represented by white shell, and the pupils by dark brown. Between the eyes there is a three-cornered ornament of mother-of-pearl inlaid with white and brown shells. The gazelle’s neck is hollow, and its head was attached to a wooden body overlaid with copper.
Another interesting representation of the animal world in metal, has been bequeathed to us by Dungi, king of Ur, and consists in a bull reclining on the top of a long nail (cf. Fig. [40], C). The bull recalls the sacrificial animal portrayed on the little sculptured block reproduced in Fig. [27]. The horns are short as there, but the thick neck and inflated throat at once give us the idea of a bellowing bull, the attitude being wonderfully natural, and the whole work full of vigour and animation. It is about twenty-six inches in height.
In Fig. [40], D[108] we have an illustration of another little metal bull, the metal in this case being bronze—an indication of a somewhat later date—and the posture a standing one. The place of its discovery is uncertain, but as M. Heuzey says, it shows no trace of hard Assyrian conventionalism, but on the contrary has all the characteristics proper to early Babylonian art. The bull, which is twelve inches in height and thirteen inches in length, stands on a narrow plinth to the bottom of which a nail was apparently fixed, recalling the nail-pointed statuettes from Tellô. The particular interest of this little figure lies in the fact that it is inlaid with silver, the object of which was clearly to represent the markings of a certain breed of bulls. The eyes were once inlaid with this metal, and the thin plates of silver with which the body of the animal was inlaid are still in place. This little figure thus proves that the Babylonians had not only acquired the art of inlaying objects made of stone, but also those that were made of metal.
Among other early Babylonian representations of animals in metal, may be mentioned a “bronze lion-headed object” (cf. Fig. [40], E) discovered at Bismâya.[109] The spike itself, apart from the lion, measures nineteen inches. As it was found over eight feet below a platform of plano-convex bricks, its antiquity must be very great, and in the light of subsequent research it may probably be assumed that it is bronze only in appearance, like so many of the products of early Sumerian metallurgy, any alloy there may be in the copper being at this date accidental and not intentional. The lion is crude, but the artist’s inexperience has not prevented him from producing an animal both natural in its pose, and therefore artistic in its effects.
Various other objects and weapons made of copper have been discovered at Nippur, Fâra, Tell Sifr, and other Babylonian sites, and they include hammers, knives, daggers, hatchets, fetters, mirrors, fish-hooks, net-weights, spear-heads, vases, dishes and caldrons, the weapons sometimes having rivets for wooden handles, which have long since perished.[110]
The moulds in which all these copper objects, both hollow and solid, were cast were probably made of clay, though in later times stone was frequently used as a material for making moulds for metal-casting, and various examples of such moulds made of steatite, wherein were cast ear-rings and other articles of jewellery, are now in the British Museum, while at the same late period bronze itself seems to have been employed, and bronze moulds for arrow-heads are still extant. But there is no evidence for the use of either stone or metal moulds among the Sumerians, and it is to their use of clay moulds that we must doubtless ascribe, at least in part, the extraordinary animation which these early Babylonian figures exhibit, for obviously the fashioning of the head of a bull or of a human being in clay would be a comparatively easy work to chiselling it in stone, and the work would consequently lack the heavy laboriousness which is so often the outstanding characteristic of early stone sculptures. The copper remains of this age are far from being as ample as one might wish, but many weapons, tools and other objects which must undoubtedly have been made of metal, and therefore probably of copper at this time, are portrayed on some of the earliest Babylonian reliefs and seals, and give us some idea of the extensive use which the Babylonians of this remote period must have made of metal, and of the numerous purposes for which they employed it. Sometimes it would appear that instead of fashioning the required objects by means of moulds, they relied entirely on the hammer: evidence of this was forthcoming by the discovery of a portion of the horn of an ox by De Sarzec at Tellô. Unfortunately no other part of the animal to which this horn belonged was brought to light, but the horn is life-size and well made. The core consisted of wood upon which the copper plates were fixed by means of small nails.
The exact time when the Mesopotamians acquired and practised the art of adding a percentage of tin to the copper, thereby making it bronze—a metal possessed of greater strength than copper—is not known, but a judgment based on the evidence afforded by the cases which have been actually chemically analysed, would indicate that the artificial combination of copper and tin was not known till the Assyrian era, and that any percentage of tin or antimony found in the copper objects of earlier date is a natural and not an artificial alloy. It is however worthy of note that apparently as early as the time of Bur-Sin, king of Ur (circ. 2400 B.C.), the art of mixing metals was not unknown. At all events a copper statuette of the Kanephorous order, and bearing an inscription of this king, contains an alloy of lead, the percentage of lead being as much as eighteen per cent. But with the rise of Assyrian power, bronze gradually supplanted copper; copper was indeed still used, and Esarhaddon, for example, informs us that he made the doors of one of the palaces which he erected for himself, of cypress wood, and that he further overlaid them with silver and copper; it was also used for subordinate purposes, as for example in the manufacture of colour,[111] but it ceased to occupy an important place in the life of the people, though of course as the principal contributor to the artificially composed bronze it was still used extensively, though in a less conspicuous manner.
A good example of the use of bronze in the early Assyrian period is to be found in a scimitar (cf. Fig. [41], A) bearing an inscription of Adad-nirari I, king of Assyria about 1325 B.C. The whole length of the sword is just over twenty-one inches, the length of the blade being sixteen inches, and that of the hilt about five, while its width varies from just over one to just under two inches. The sword was evidently a ceremonial one, and possibly was at one time placed in the hand of a god’s statue; its hilt was apparently jewelled and inlaid with ivory,[112] and it resembles that found by Macalister at Gezer in Southern Palestine. It is interesting to compare the scimitar of Adad-nirari with the sword found by Andrae at Ashur (cf. Fig. [41], B) from which it differs entirely in character and design, the latter being perfectly straight. Another interesting discovery made by Andrae on the same site is a bronze axe (cf. Fig. [41], C), which is quite modern in its appearance, and is not unlike a short-handled ice-axe.
