a low relief; and thirdly, of embossed work wrought
mainly with the hammer, but finished by a sparing use of the graving
tool.

[Illustration: PLATE 74]

The solid castings are comparatively rare, and represented none but
animal forms. Lions, which seem to have been used as weights, occur most
frequently, [PLATE LXXIV., Fig. 1.] None are of any great size; nor have
we any evidence that the Assyrians could cast large masses of metal.
They seem to have used castings, not (as the Greeks and the moderns) for
the greater works of art, but only for the smaller. The forms of the few
casts which have come down to us are good, and are free from the
narrowness which characterizes the representations in stone.

Castings in a low relief formed the ornamentation of thrones [PLATE
LXXIV., Figs. 2, 3], stools, and sometimes probably of chariots. They
consisted of animal and human figures, winged deities, griffins, and the
like. The castings were chiefly in open-work, and were attached to the
furniture which they ornamented by means of small nails. They have no
peculiar merit, being merely repetitions of the forms with which we are
familiar from their occurrence on embroidered dresses and on the
cylinders.

[Illustration: PLATE 75]

The embossed work of the Assyrians is the most curious and the most
artistic portion of their metallurgy. Sometimes it consisted of mere
heads and feet of animals, hammered into shape upon a model composed of
clay mixed with bitumen. [PLATE LXXV., Figs. 1, 2.] Sometimes it
extended to entire figures, as (probably) in the case of the lions
clasping each other, so common at the ends of sword-sheaths (see [PLATE
LXXV., Fig. 3]), the human figures which ornament the sides of chairs or
stools, and the like. [PLATE. LXXV., Fig. 3.] Occasionally it was of a
less solid but at the same time of a more elaborate character. In a
palace inhabited by Sargon at Nimrud, and in close juxtaposition with a
monument certainly of his time, were discovered by Mr. Layard a number
of dishes, plates, and bowls, embossed with great taste and skill, which
are among the most elegant specimens of Assyrian art discovered during
the recent researches. Upon these were represented sometimes hunting
scenes, sometimes combats between griffins and lions, or between men and
lions, sometimes landscapes with trees and figures of animals, sometimes
mere rows of animals following one another. One or two representations
from these bowls have