As we have already seen, enamelled bricks were used for the purposes of architectural decoration in Assyria as well as in Babylonia, though the enamel used is generally inferior in quality, and is more thinly applied, in consequence of which it does not adhere so well to the clay, and it fades sooner. To Place and Botta we are indebted for the finest and largest specimens of the Assyrian enameller’s art as yet discovered. The principal gateways of Dûr-Sharrukîn (Khorsabad) (the town built by Sargon, 722-705 B.C.), which are formed of arches resting on the backs of projecting winged bulls, seem to have been the object of the painter’s peculiar attention. These arches were decorated with a semicircle of enamelled bricks (cf. Pl. [XXX]), the enamel being laid upon one edge of the bricks, the average length of which is about three and a half inches. The ground is blue and the composite winged figures are yellow, while a line of green edges the lower part of the head-gear. The rosettes which form a supplemental decoration are white. These figures which extend over the entire round of the arch are all uniform: they are engaged in some act of worship, or in the performance of some religious ceremony, and at once recall the scenes depicted on the palace wall reliefs, with which they are practically identical. In contradistinction to the method usually employed in Babylonia, these coloured representations are not in relief, the colour being applied to the flat surface of the bricks, the only exception being the central bosses of the rosettes which are slightly raised. Another good example of coloured tile-work was found on a plinth in the doorway of what Place regarded as the harem in Sargon’s palace. The plinth in question is twenty-three feet long and over three feet high. The figures portrayed are the king, standing on one side of the plinth with bare head, while on the other side he wears the usual head-gear, a lion, a bull, an eagle, a tree and a plough, all done in yellow on a blue background, the borders of the whole plinth being decorated with the inevitable rosettes. The leaves of the tree are green, a colour apparently somewhat seldom used by the enamellers of Mesopotamia. Another painted fragment from Khorsabad, interesting for the extreme brilliancy of its colouring (cf. Place, Nineve, Pl. 32), is reproduced in Pl. [XXXI]. The faces of the two human beings are white, the background being green; the frieze at the top is yellow, the circular decorations consisting of an inner circle of green or yellow, while the outer circle is composed of trapezoidal figures of red and white in the case of those with a green inner circle, and red and green in those with yellow centres, arranged in either case alternately.
Layard also succeeded in recovering many glazed and coloured bricks from Nimrûd (Calah) of even greater interest as regards the composition of the scenes depicted than as regards the colours used, which in their present state in no way compare with those from Khorsabad in brilliancy. The most interesting of these (cf. Pl. [XXXI]) is one in which the king, followed by the chief eunuch, is seen receiving his chief officer,[127] a scene so often portrayed on the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Above his head there is a “kind of fringed pavilion” and the sole remaining sign of a cuneiform inscription, while beneath him is a spiral design seen more frequently on the so-called Hittite works of art, though it is also found as a decorative accessory on some of the earliest sculptures in Babylonia (cf. Fig. [27]). The predominating colours are black and yellow: the hair and beard of the king and his followers, their sandals, as well as the circular balls found within each link of the spiral chain are black, the background is light yellow, the dress of the various figures being of a deeper shade of yellow, and the royal head-dress white. As Layard says: “This is an unique specimen of an entire Assyrian painting.”
Of the remainder, the most interesting are briefly described by Layard in Discoveries, pp. 166 and 167, and illustrated in colours in his Monuments, Series II, Pls. 53-55. One of these (Pl. 54, 7) contains a picture of four hairless and clean-shaven captives, whose four necks are bound together by means of a rope, the end of which is held by the prisoner in front. Two of the prisoners wear white loin-cloths, while the other two are clad in long white shirts opening in front. As regards the colours, the ground is a pale blue, and the figures are yellow. Another fragment of great interest is that reproduced in Monuments, Pl. 54, 12, on which are portrayed two horses, an Assyrian warrior, and a man holding a dagger. The latter, who is naked with the exception of a blue loin-cloth, has apparently been wounded or killed in battle. The background here is olive-green, while the horses are blue. On another glazed tile (Pl. 54, 13), we see a picture of Assyrian cavalry, again on a ground of olive-green, but in this case the horses are yellow, while the trappings are blue. One of these painted bricks (Pl. 53, 1) presents us with a picture of a blue fish on a yellow background; the scales of the fish however are coloured white, while on the same tile there is a man transfixed by two arrows and girded with a white loin-cloth. On another fragment (Pl. 53, 3), a chariot to which horses are yoked is being dragged over a naked figure, whose neck has been pierced by an arrow. A fillet to which is attached a feather, encircles the man’s head. The horses are blue, their trappings being white, and the wheels of the chariot are yellow. Below are seen the heads together with a portion of the shields of two Assyrian soldiers. The helmets are yellow, but the faces are “merely outlined in white on the olive-green ground,” while the shields are blue, but are edged with alternate squares of yellow and blue. All these belong to the same period, but another fragment was found by Layard (Pl. 53, 6) which appears to be of earlier date: the background is yellow, but the outline is black instead of white, while the figures, the heads of which have been destroyed, are dressed in the same way as the tribute-bearers bringing a monkey and other offerings to Ashur-naṣir-pal, as portrayed on bas-reliefs which were taken from the same building. The outer mantle is blue, the inner being yellow, and the fringes white.
But pottery was also sometimes decorated with colours; thus Captain Cros, De Sarzec’s successor at Tellô, discovered black pottery with incised lines filled in with white paste on this site, a style of pottery well known in Egypt and elsewhere, but not hitherto found in Babylonia. At Nippur on the other hand pottery painted with green and yellow stripes was found, while other vases decorated with black and white discs were also brought to light.
PLATE XXXI
Glazed brick
(cf. Place, “Ninive,” Pl. 32)
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| Photo. Mansell | British Museum |
| Glazed Brick, with figure of an Assyrianking pouring out a libation on his returnfrom a hunt | |
Painted pottery has been similarly found in Assyria: at Nimrûd Sir Henry Layard’s men discovered various fragments of pottery which apparently belonged to the covers of jars; they were decorated with the spiral design, also honeysuckles, cones and tulips, in black on a pale yellow ground. Prehistoric pottery has moreover been found in the course of the recent excavations at Ashur, the clay vessels in question being decorated with red and black geometrical designs. Clay slipper-shaped coffins were also sometimes coloured; many of the sarcophagi discovered at Nippur were covered with a blue glaze, but they belonged apparently to the Parthian period. Glazed sarcophagi were likewise found at Warka (i.e. the ancient Erech) as well as at the city of Babylon, though they also were the products of a late period. Various other terra-cotta objects were not infrequently coated with a vitreous glaze, the colour of the enamel being usually blue or green. Colour was not only used in Babylonia however for decorating buildings, pots and figures, but also apparently for the adornment of the human body, for the German excavations at Fâra revealed the presence of alabaster colour-dishes in the graves, traces of the colour in some cases still remaining. The colours are black, yellow, light green and light red. According to the analysis of the colours of the Babylonian bricks conducted by Sir Henry De la Becke and Dr. Percy, quoted by Layard,[128] “the yellow is an antimoniate of lead, from which tin has also been extracted, called Naples yellow, supposed to be comparatively a modern discovery, though also used by the Egyptians. The white is an enamel or glaze of oxide of tin, an invention attributed to the Arabs of Northern Africa in the eighth or ninth century. The blue glaze is a copper, contains no cobalt, but some lead; a curious fact, as this mineral was not added as a colouring material, but to facilitate the fusion of the glaze, to which use, it was believed, lead had only been turned in comparatively modern times. The red is a sub-oxide of copper.”