Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/259

 SECONDARY FORMS. 237 practically suppress the former, while, on the other hand, he gave extravagant dimensions to the latter. It was to the door that o the rooms had mainly to look for the light and air, with which they could not entirely dispense. We have now to give a few details as to the fashion in which these large openings were set in the walls that enframed them. As for salient decorative members or mouldings, to give them their right name their list is very short. We shall, however, find them in some variety in a series of little monuments that deserve, perhaps, more attention than they have yet received we mean altars, steles, and those objects to which the name of obelisks has, with some inaccuracy, been given. Some of these objects have no little grace of their own, and serve to prove that what the Chaldaeans and Assyrians lacked was neither taste nor invention, but the en- couragement that the possession of a kindly material would have ofiven to their gfenius. o o Doorways seem to have been generally crowned with a brick archivolt ; round-headed doors occur oftener than any others on the bas-reliefs, but rectangular examples are not wanting (see Fig. 43). In the latter case the lintel must have been of wood, metal, or stone. Naturally the bronze and timber lintels have disappeared, while in but a single instance have the explorers found one of stone, namely that discovered by George Smith at the entrance to a hall in the palace of Sennacherib (Fig. 95). It consists of a block of richly carved limestone. Its sculp- tures are now much worn, but their motives and firm execution may still be admired. Two winged dragons, with long necks folded like that of a swan, face each other, the narrow space between them being occupied by a large two-handled vase. Above these there is a band of carved foliage, the details of which are lost in the shadow cast by a projecting cornice along the top of the lintel. 1 The necklace round the throat of the right-hand dragon should be noticed. 1 GEORGE SMITH, Assyrian Discoveries, pp. 146, 308, 429. This lintel has been fixed over the south doorway into the Kouyundjik Gallery of the British Museum. When examined in place, the running ornament in the hollow of the cornice will be easily recognised in spite of the mutilation of its upper edge as made up of a modified form of the palmette motive, which had its origin in the fan-shaped head of the date palm. The eight plumes of which the ornament consists are each formed of three large leaves or loops and two small pendant ones, the latter affording a means of connecting each plume with those next to it. ED.