Some very unique specimens of Babylonian black pottery with incised lines filled with white paste were discovered by Capt. Cros at Tellô. These vases were not only decorated with geometrical designs, but also with fish, boats, water-fowl and other river scenes.[158] This type of pottery is of frequent occurrence in the ancient world. It has been found in Susa on the east, while in the west it penetrated as far as Spain. Of Babylonian pottery belonging to the Kassite period, mention should especially be made of three vases discovered by Peters and Haynes at Nippur. These pots are decorated with green and yellow stripes, and were enclosed in an urn together with three small boxes, the largest of which was ornamented with knobs. Along with these articles more than a hundred discs and crescents pierced for the purposes of suspension, and mostly coloured black or white, were also found. One of the best examples of late pottery is the delicately-shaped and well-preserved amphora discovered by Koldewey at Babylon,[159] but it must probably be assigned to the Roman period.
With regard to Assyrian pottery we are in a still greater state of ignorance, in spite of the wealth of material at hand. Large quantities of pottery were brought to light by Botta, Layard and other early excavators, but unfortunately their archæological importance seemed as nothing compared with colossal bulls, sculptured bas-reliefs, or even prosaic clay tablets, and the result of this fortunately bygone apathy is that the site from which they came is sometimes not ascertainable, while on hardly any occasion is it possible to discover the building or immediate locality where they were found.
But the scientific excavations carried on by Koldewey and Andrae at Ashur are calculated to yield more satisfactory results in this connection. These excavations have already thrown light on the early pottery of Assyria, in the discovery of clay vessels decorated with black and red geometrical designs and assigned to the prehistoric period.
Another interesting specimen of Assyrian pottery found on the same site consists in a large round vase decorated about the top and having two handles.[160]
In Pl. [XXXIII] we have a miscellaneous group of pottery from the ruined mounds of Nineveh, and a similar group from Nimrûd. The pots here displayed show much variation both in size and form, but little more can be said about them. Apart, however, from the complete vessels in clay, a number of fragments of bowls have been recovered bearing inscriptions of kings of Assyria who reigned between 1140-681 B.C. These inscriptions are principally concerned with the various building-operations undertaken during the reign of the king in question. Were these bowls complete they would be of immense importance in arriving at some definite idea as to the shapes and sizes of vases in vogue at the different periods to which they belong. But as fortune or misfortune has it, hardly any of the well-preserved cups and bowls as yet recovered bear any inscription or design at all, and this is one of the great difficulties with which the student of Babylonian and Assyrian pottery has to contend. Sometimes a coloured glaze was applied to the surface of terra-cotta vessels, but to what extent this practice prevailed in early times it is hard to say.
Probably the two most striking pots yielded by the excavations are those numbered 91941 and 91950 in the British Museum collections. The former is a large jar nineteen inches high and eighteen and three-quarter inches in diameter, upon which is portrayed the figure of a man with the tail of a goat and the claws of an eagle, while the broken remains of one handle are still preserved. The latter is a six-handled vase two feet six inches high, on the body of which rude figures and dragon-like animals are depicted, but both of these vases probably belong to post-Assyrian times.