ass has been
found; but Mr. Layard discovered several moulds, with tasteful designs
for earrings, both at Nimrud and at Koyunjik; and the sculptures show
that both in these and the other personal ornaments a good deal of
artistic excellence was exhibited. The earrings are frequent in the form
of a cross, and are sometimes delicately chased. The armlets and
bracelets generally terminate in the heads of rams or bulls, which seem
to have been rendered with spirit and taste.

[Illustration: PLATE 77]

[Illustration: PLATE 78]

By one or two instances it appears that the Assyrians knew how to inlay
one metal with another. [PLATE LXXVI, Fig. 5.] The specimens discovered
are scarcely of an artistic character, being merely winged scarabaei,
outlined in gold on a bronze ground [PLATE LXXVI., Fig. 4.] The work,
however, is delicate, and the form very much more true to nature than
that which prevailed in Egypt.

The ivories of the Assyrians are inferior both to their metal castings
and to their bas-reliefs. They consist almost entirely of a single
series, discovered by Mr. Layard in a chamber of the North-West Palace
at Nimrud, in the near vicinity of slabs on which was engraved the name
of Sargon. The most remarkable point connected with them is the
thoroughly Egyptian character of the greater number which at first sight
have almost the appearance of being importations from the valley of the
Nile. Egyptian profiles, head-dresses, fashions of dressing the hair,
ornaments, attitudes, meet us at every turn; while sometimes we find the
representations of Egyptian gods, and in two cases hieroglyphics within
cartouches. (See [PLATE LXXVIII.]) A few specimens only are of a
distinctly Assyrian type, as a fragment of a panel, figured by Mr.
Layard [PLATE LXXVII., Fig. 1], and one or two others, in which the
guilloche border appears. These carvings are usually mere low reliefs,
occupying small panels or tablets, which were mortised or glued to the
woodwork of furniture. They were sometimes inlaid in parts with blue
grass, or with blue and green pastes let into the ivory, and at the same
time decorated with gilding. Now and then the relief is tolerably high,
and presents fragments of forms which seem to have had some artistic
merit. The best of these is the fore part of a lion walking among reeds
(p. 373), which presents analogies with the early art of Asia Minor.
[PLATE LXXVII., Fig. 3.] One or two stags' heads have likewise been
foun