Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/169

 Conventions of Chald.eo-Assyrian Sculpture. 141 At first sight this curious monument surprises those who are accustomed to Assyrian art, but the nature of the material has not a little to do with that. The hardness and darkness of basalt affect the treatment of the sculptor in quite a different way from a gypseous stone like alabaster. Add to this that the propor- tions are quite unlike those of the Ninevite reliefs. This Marduk- idin-akhi is a work of the ancient school, which made its figures far shorter than those of such Assyrian reliefs as have come down to us. Finally the head-dress should be noticed. In place of being conical it is cylindrical, a form which overweights the figure and shortens its apparent proportions. On the whole, any one looking Fig. 6j. — Fragment of a Chalctaean bas-relief. Louvre. Limestone. Height 3f inches. at this stele without bias on one side or the other, will, we think, acknowledge that the type it presents is the same as the figures at Nimroud, Khorsabad, and Kouyundjik. It is, moreover, identical with that we see in monuments even older than this royal Babylonian stele, such as the fragmentary relief found by M. de Sarzec at Sirtella (Fig. 6j). The type which crops up so often in the pages of this history was fixed, in all its main features, in the earliest attempts at plastic art made by the Chaldseans. By them it was transmitted to their scholars, the Assyrians, and during long centuries, with a short, thickset body, a short neck buried between the shoulders, a flat nose and thick lips " (p. 259 of his paper).