Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/372

 350 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALD.MA AND ASSYRIA. while another detail of his person exactly reproduces the contours of a snake. 1 The hind feet are those of a bird-of-prey. We must now describe the reverse of this singular monument (Fig. 162). In the first place its upper edge is surmounted by the claws and face of the beast just described, which thus dominates, as it were, the scenes depicted below. FIG. 161. Plaque of chiselled bronze. Obverse. From the Revue archtologique, These scenes are divided by horizontal bands into four divi- sions, and those divisions are by no means arbitrary ; they show us what the sculptor thought as to the four regions into which the L M. CLERMONT-GANNEAU reminds us that this peculiarity is repeated in a monster on one of the Nimroud reliefs (see LAYARD, Monuments, series ii. plate 3).