Fig. 41.—A (cf. T. S. B. A., vol. IV, Pl. 2, p. 347).
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxB (cf. Andrae, Der Anu-Adad Tempel, p. 53).
Many other weapons, implements, dishes, bowls and rings of bronze were discovered at Nineveh, Nimrûd and elsewhere. In Plate [XXVIII], we have a bronze ox-hoof, which apparently formed the leg of a throne,—and two other bronze fittings of a throne. Below are two of the bronze lion-weights from Nimrûd. Many of these weights are inscribed in cuneiform with the names of the kings in whose reigns they were made, e.g. Tiglath-Pileser, Shalmaneser IV and Sennacherib, the amounts they weighed being inscribed in Phœnician. They were possibly made by Phœnician immigrants. The specific gravity required in the case of each weight was normally arrived at by chiselling pieces off the base, but in one case, the gravity had to be increased and not diminished, and this was effected by filling the hollow body of the lion with lead, until it weighed the necessary amount. Immediately above the head of the larger of the two lions here represented, we see the bronze head of a Babylonian demon.
Assyrian bronze generally contains one part of tin to ten of copper, but in the case of the bronze bells found by Layard at Nimrûd (one of which is reproduced in Plate [XXVIII]), it was found by analysis that the percentage of tin was about fourteen. This was doubtless to make their ring more resonant. The bells in question vary in size, the largest being about three and a quarter inches in height and two and a quarter in diameter,[113] while the smallest is one and three-quarter inches high and one and a quarter inches in diameter. The clappers of these bells are made of iron.
But the bronze dishes from Nimrûd show the Assyrian metal-engravers’ work perhaps at its highest, and offer more material for the study of that branch of Assyrian metallurgy than any other class of objects. The general style of decoration to which they conform is that determined by concentric circles cutting up the upper surface of the dish into so many registers, though sometimes nearly the whole of the field is occupied with one scene. The figures portrayed frequently exhibit a very strong Egyptian influence, and are sometimes entirely Egyptian in design.
In Plate [XXIX] we have a reproduction of one of the best preserved of these bronze dishes found by Layard at Nimrûd. The griffins which occupy the principal place in the scheme of decoration are entirely Egyptian in conception, while they further wear on their heads the familiar double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. The front left hoof of each griffin rests in an almost parental fashion upon the head of a child, who is also clearly Egyptian. Both before, between and behind the griffins, tapering columns such as are frequently found in Egyptian architecture are observable, and in the centre of the space separating the back of one griffin from the back of the nearest animal in the adjoining group, there is a more substantial pillar, the capital of which is shaped to represent a winged scarab. The animals are all beaten out in relief, but the finely chased circles of fleurettes which form the sole decoration of the centre, are the work of the engraver.
Fig. 42. (After Layard.)