Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/223

 THE COLUMN. 201 edge is grooved. High up on the obverse there is a bas-relief, beneath this commences a long inscription which is finished on the reverse. 1 Shorter inscriptions are engraved on the field of the relief itself. The whole work figures, inscriptions, and outer mouldings is executed with the utmost care. The o laborious solicitude with which the smallest details are carried out is to be explained by the destination of this little plaque, namely, the temple in the centre of Sippara in which a triad consisting of Sin, Samas, and Istar was the object of worship. 2 The relief itself -which we reproduce from a cast kindly pre- sented to us by Dr. Birch occupies rather less than half of the obverse (Fig. 71). It represents a king called Nabou-Abla-Idin, who reigned about 900, doing homage to the sun-god. 8 We shall return to this scene and its composition when the time arrives for treating Chaldaean sculpture. At present we only wish to speak of the pavilion under which the deity is enthroned upon a chair supported by two beings half man and half bull. This kind of tabernacle is bounded, above and at the back of the god, by a wall of which there is nothing to show the exact nature. Its graceful, sinuous line, however, seems to exclude the idea, sufficiently improbable in itself, of a brick vault. It may possibly have been of wood, though it would not be easy to obtain this elegant curve even in that material. But such forms as this are given with the greatest ease in metal, and we are ready to believe that what the artist here meant to represent was a metal frame, which could at need be hidden under a canopy of leather or wool, like those we have already en- countered in the Assyrian bas-reliefs (Figs. 67 and 68). The artist has in fact made use of a graphic process common enough with the Egyptians. 4 He has given us a lateral elevation of the tabernacle with the god in profile within it, because his skill was 1 This inscription is published in full in the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. v. part ii. 2 The names of these three deities are furnished by the inscription which runs beneath the canopy of the pavilion (see Fig. 71). 3 The disk upon the table is enough by itself to betray the identity of the god, but as if to render assurance doubly sure, the artist has taken the trouble to cut on the bed of the relief under the three small figures, an inscription which has been thus translated by MM. OPPERT and MENANT : "Image of the Sun, the Great Lord, who dwells in the temple of Bit-para, in the city of Sippara." 4 See our History of Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. chap, i, i. D D