Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/115

 Themes of Chald/EO-Assyrian Sculpture. 97 bare. The end is simply passed under the first fold, by which it is tightly held. 1 There is no trace of a tunic. In Assyria the mantle was variously arranged. It always left one shoulder free, which was covered, however, by the tunic. As a rule it reached to the feet (Vol. I. Fig. 22), but sometimes it was so contrived as to leave one leg exposed from the knee downwards. The robes of Sargon praying before the sacred tree are thus arranged (Fig- 45). As for the women's dress, it was still more impenetrable than that of the men. In the Assyrian bas-reliefs there are very few figures of women on any considerable scale. We can hardly point to an instance, except in the slab where Assurbanipal and his queen are shown feasting in a garden (Vol. I. Fig. 28). In this carved L,..-. -^<'i,.j Fig. 44. — Captives on the march. From the palace of Sennacherib. picture the queen is robed in a tunic and mantle, over which the embroiderer's needle has thrown a profusion of those rosettes that are so popular in Mesopotamian art. We are allowed to glean no hint of the personal charms of the favoured sultana, who must have been young and beautiful. They are entirely masked by the envelope in which she is wrapped. In all this we are far enough from the semi-nudity of the Egyptian sculptures, to say nothing of the frank display of the Greeks. On the banks of the Nile, where the climate had no violent changes and the air was deliciously dry and limpid, both poor and rich, both the king and his subjects, were contented with the white drawers, which were carefully plaited and knotted about the hips. 1 Heuzev, Les fouilles de Clialdêe, p. 13. VOL. II. O