Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/193

 On the Representations of Animals. 16 strongly upon fidelity to fact as in the historical bas-reliefs, but whether they made use of his figure as a whole or confined them- selves to the head or paws, they always preserved the true character and originality of the forms. This may be clearly seen in an object belonging to the British Museum (Fig. 81). We do not exactly know where it was found and we cannot say what Fig. 8i. — Niche decorated with two lions. Height 6^ inches. British Museum. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier. may have been its use. It is a kind of shallow niche cut from a fossiliferous rock. 1 It is hardly deep enough to have sheltered an idol or statuette of any kind. But whatever it may have been 1 The same rock may be identified in the fragments from Tello. There is a kind of cylindrical base in the Louvre, which appears to have been cut from a material differing in no respect from that of the object figured above. Lions' heads appear upon it also.