Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/241

 THE COLUMN. 219 of more complicated construction in the Kouyundjik bas-relief figured above (Fig. 83). No door is shown, but that, perhaps, is due to the sculptor's inability to suggest a void, or the two central perpendicular lines may have been joined by a horizontal one on the upper part of the relief, which is lost, and thus a doorway indicated ; it would then have a couple of pilasters and a couple of columns on each flank. In classic architecture we find nothing that can be compaivid. with this curious notion of placing columns and pilasters on the backs of real or imaginary animals, on a lion, a winged bull, or a sphinx. In the modern East, however, it is still done. The throne of the Shah, at Teheran, is supported by columns which, in their turn, stand on the backs of lions. Singularly enough the same idea found favour with European architects in the middle ages, who often made use of it in the porches of their Christian cathedrals. 1 Hence, the old formula often found in judicial documents, sedente inter leoncs, sitting between the lions which was used of episcopal judgments delivered in the church porch. In Italy, in buildings of the Lombardic style, these lions are to be found in great numbers and in this same situation. At Modena there is one in the south porch of the cathedral that strongly reminded me by its style and handling of the figures now existing in Cappadocia, of the lion at Euiuk, for example ; in both instances it is extended on the ground with its fore paws laid upon some beast it has caught. 2 We could hardly name a motive more dear to Oriental art than this. Between the predilections of the modern East and those of Assyria and Chaldaea there are many such analogies. We shall not try to explain them ; we shall be content with pointing them out as they present themselves. Various facts observed by Sir Henry Layard and the late George Smith, show that the column was often employed to form covered alleys stretching from a door to the edge of the platform, doubtless to the landings on which the stepped or inclined approaches to the palace came to an end. Sir Henry Layard 3 found four bases of limestone (Fig. 82) on the north side of 1 This coincidence struck Professor Rawlinson, who compares one of these Assyrian columns to a column in the porch of the Cathedral of Trent. He reproduces them both in his Fire Great Monarchies, vol. i. p. 313. 2 See PERROT and GUILI AUMF, Exploration arch'eologique de la Galatie, vol. ii. pi. 57. 3 Discoveries, p. 590.