[25] The Assyrian designs are such as are now still worked at Benares, and being full of animals, they are called Shikurgah, or “happy hunting-grounds.” See Sir G. Birdwood’s “Industrial Arts of India,” p. 236. See also Plate 4.
[26] See Perrot and Chipiez (pp. 737-757); also Clermont Ganneau’s Histoire de l’Art, “L’Imagerie Phénicienne,” Plate 1, pt. 1. Coupe de Palestrina. He says that certain scenes from the “Shield of Achilles” are literally to be found on Phœnician vases that have come down to us—vases of which Homer himself must have seen some of analogous design.
[27] Homer speaks of Sidonian embroideries, “Iliad,” vi., 287-295.
[28] See Egyptian fragments in the British Museum, and the specimens of Peruvian textiles; and Reiss and Stübel’s “Necropolis of Ancon in Peru.”
[29] At Cervetri, Dennis’ “Etruria,” ed. 1878, i. p. 268.
[30] The restless activity of the Phœnicians has often helped to confuse our æsthetic knowledge, and has caused the waste of much speculation in ascertaining how certain objects of luxury, belonging to distant civilizations, can possibly have arrived at the places where we find them.
[31] “The Beautiful Gate of the Temple was covered all over with gold. It had also golden vines above it, from which hung clusters of grapes as tall as a man’s height.... It had golden doors of 55 cubits altitude, and 16 in breadth: but before these doors there was a veil of equal largeness with the doors. It was a Babylonian curtain of blue, fine linen, and scarlet and purple; of an admixture that was truly wonderful. Nor was the mixture without its mystical interpretation; but was a kind of image of the universe. For by the scarlet was to be enigmatically signified fire; by the fine flax, the earth; by the blue, the air, and by the purple, the sea;—two of them having their colours for the foundation of this resemblance; but the fine flax and the purple have their own origin for this foundation, the earth producing the one, and the sea the other. This curtain had also embroidered upon it all that was mystical in the heavens excepting the twelve signs of the zodiac, representing living creatures.” Josephus (Trans. by Whiston), p. 895.
[32] See also M. E. Harkness and Stuart Poole, “Assyrian Life and History,” p. 66.
[33] The visions of Ezekiel and St. John remind us of the composite figures and animals in Ninevite sculptures, and the prophetic poetry helps us to interpret their symbolism.
[34] G. Smith’s “Ancient History of the Monuments,” Babylonia, p. 33. Edited by Sayce.