Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/227

 THE COLUMN. 205 a leaf of gold which is now in the Louvre ; it presents the same ovoid forms as the bronze sheathing, and, moreover, the numerous nail holes show that it was meant to fulfil the same purpose as the bronze plates. The place in which it was found, its dimensions and form, all combine to prove that it was laid upon the bronze as we should lay gold leaf. It bears an inscription in cuneiform characters. We are inclined to take these plates for models in restoring the columns of the Sippara tabernacle. There is nothing in the rich- ness of this double covering of bronze and gold to cause surprise, as the inscription which covers part of the face and the whole FIG. 72. Sheath of a cedar-wood mast, bronze. of the back of the tablet is nothing but a long enumeration of the gifts made to the shrine of Samas by the reigning king and his predecessors. This column has both capital and base. The former cannot have been of stone ; a heavy block of basalt or even of limestone would be quite out of place in such a situation. As for the base it is hardly more than a repetition of the capital, and must have been of the same material ; and that material was metal, the only substance that, when bent by the hand or beaten by the hammer, takes almost of its own motion those graceful curves that we call volutes.