Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/218

 196 A HISTORY OF ART IN CIIALD/KA AND ASSYRIA. bas-reliefs in question they are placed before a stele with a rounded top, which is shown at the top of our engraving. This stele bears a figure of the monarch ; another one like it is cut upon a cylinder of green feldspar found by Layard close to the principal entrance to Sennacherib's palace (see Fig. 69). l Though practically absent from the great brick palaces, the column here played an important and conspicuous part. It fur- nished elegant and richly decorated supports for canopies of wool that softly rose and fell with the passing breeze. Fair carpets were spread upon the ground beneath, others were sus- pended to cross beams painted with lively colours, and swept the earth with the long and feathered fringes sewn upon their borders. The difference was great between the massive buildings by which the Mesopotamia!! plains were dominated, and these light, FIG. 69. The Seal of Sennacherib. Cylinder of green feldspar in the British Museum. airy structures which must have risen in great numbers in Chaldaea and Assyria, here on the banks of canals and rivers or in the glades of shady parks, there on the broad esplanades of a temple or in the courts of a royal palace. Between the mountains of clay on the one hand and these graceful tabernacles with their slender supports -and gay coverings on the other, the contrast must have been both charming and piquant. Nowhere else do we find the distinction between the house and the t^nt so strongly marked. The latter must have held, too, a much more important place in the national life than it did either in Egypt or Greece. The monarch spent most of his time either in hunting or fighting, and his court must have followed him to the field. Moreover, when spring covers every meadow with deep herbage and brilliant flowers, an irresistible desire comes over the inhabitants of such 1 This cylinder, which is now in the British Museum, was perhaps the actual signet of the king:.