lue, ground yellow, the shafts of
spears black, lions a tawny brown, etc. No attempt was made to shade
the figures or the landscape, much less to produce any general effect
by means of _chiaroscuro_; but the artist trusted for his effect to
a careful delineation of forms, and a judicious arrangement of simple
hues.

Considerable metallurgic knowledge and skill were shown in the
composition of the pigments, and the preparation and application of
the glaze wherewith they are covered. The red used was a sub-oxide of
copper; the yellow was sometimes oxide of iron, sometimes antimoniate of
lead--the Naples yellow of modern artists; the blue was either cobalt or
oxide of copper; the white was oxide of tin. Oxide of load was added in
some cases, not as a coloring matter, but as a flux, to facilitate the
fusion of the glaze. In other cases the pigment used was covered with a
vitreous coat of an alkaline silicate of alumina.

The pigments were not applied to an entirely flat surface. Prior to the
reception of the coloring matter and the glaze, each brick was modelled
by the hand, the figures being carefully traced out, and a slight
elevation given to the more important objects. A very low bas-relief was
thus produced, to which the colors were subsequently applied, and the
brick was then baked in the furnace.

It is conjectured that the bricks were not modelled singly and
separately. A large mass of clay was (it is thought) taken, sufficient
to contain a whole subject, or at any rate a considerable portion of
a subject. On this the modeller made out his design in low relief. The
mass of clay was then cut up into bricks, and each brick was taken and
painted separately with the proper colors, after which they were all
placed in the furnace and baked. When baked, they were restored to their
original places in the design, a thin layer of the finest mortar serving
to keep them in place.

From the mimetic art of the Babylonians, and the branches of knowledge
connected with it, we may now pass to the purely mechanical arts--as the
art by which hard stones were cut, and those of agriculture, metallurgy,
pottery, weaving, carpet-making, embroidery, and the like.

The stones shaped, bored, and engraved by Babylonian artisans were
not merely the softer and more easily worked kinds, as alabaster,
serpentine, and lapis-lazuli, but also the harder sorts-cornelian,
agate, quartz, jasper, sienite, loadstone, and green felspar or
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