Fig. 209.—Club-Sword.
Fig. 210.—Fancy Sword.
Mostly the weapons have richly decorated hilts and scabbards. In a royal sculpture the pommel is formed by a mound or hemisphere—a constant ornament—and below it is a ball between two flat discs: the upper jaws of two lions, placed opposite each other, embrace the blade and the grip where it presses against the metal sheath-mouth. Another has a lion’s head on the handle. The two-lion scabbard is common, and sometimes the beasts are locked in a death embrace. In another specimen the royal blade is much broader than usual, and two lions couchant form the ferrule, embracing the sheath with their paws and retrogardant or bending their heads backwards (fig. 212). The ferrule of another is enriched with a guilloche. In the inscriptions of Assur-bani-pal[674] (Sardanapalus) we read of a ‘steel Sword and its sheath of gold,’ and of ‘steel Swords of their girdles.’ Another legend runs—‘He lifted his great Sword called “Lord of the Storm,”’ proving that the Sword, like the horse, the chariot, the boat, and other favourites, had names and titles.
Fig. 211.—Assyrian Swords.
Fig. 212.—Assyrian Swords.
Fig. 213.—Assyrian Dagger.