Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/300

 278 A HISTORY OF ART IN CIIALD/EA AND ASSYRIA. of which now and then we may succeed in catching a glance. Compelled to trust almost entirely to clay, the artist of Chaldsea must have turned his attention to colour as a decoration much more exclusively than his Assyrian rival. His preoccupation with this one idea is betrayed very curiously in the facade of one of those ruined buildings at Warka which Loftus has studied and described. 1 We borrow his plan and elevation of the detail to which we refer (Fig. 1 19). In the first place the reader will recognize those semi-circular pilasters or gigantic reeds to which we have already alluded as strongly characteristic of Chaldsean architecture, and one of the most certain signs of its origin. The chevrons, the spiral lines and FIG. 119. Plan and elevation of part of a fa9ade at Warka ; from Loftus. lozenges of the coloured decoration with which the semi-columns, and the salient buttress by which they are divided into two groups, are covered, should be curiously noticed. The ornament varies with each structural division. Loftus, however, was chiefly struck by the process used to build up the design. The whole face of the wall is composed of terra-cotta cones (Fig. 120) engaged in a mortar composed of mud mixed with chopped straw. The bases of these cones are turned outwards and form the surface of the wall. Some preserve the natural colour of the terra-cotta, a dark yellow, others have been dipped before fixing no doubt in baths of red and black colouring matter. By the 1 LOFTUS, Trareh and Researches, pp. 187-189.