Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/267

 Assyrian Sculpture. 235 in a single plane. Place was obliged, by the size and shape of his page, to give them in two instalments in the plate of which our Fig. 123 is a copy. In the absence of a protecting edge they have suffered more than the figures at Bavian. They have, indeed, a slight projection or cornice above, but its salience is hardly greater than that of the figures themselves. The composition contains three groups, or rather one group repeated three times without sensible differences. The middle group, which is divided between the upper and lower parts in our woodcut, has been more seriously injured by the weather than those on each side of it ; three of its figures have almost disap- peared. The first group to the right in the upper division has part of its surface cut away by a door giving access to a rock-cut chamber behind the relief, like those at Bavian. It is. then, in the left-hand group that the subject and treatment can now be most clearly grasped. In the first place, we may see at a glance that the theme is practically the same as at Bavian ; it is a king adoring the great national gods. But the latter are now seven in number instead of two ; instead of being face to face they are all turned in one direction, towards the king ; but the latter is none the less repeated behind each group. There are some other differences. Among the animals who serve to raise the gods above the level of mere humanity we may distinguish the dog, the lion, the horse, and the winged bull. The gods are in the same attitude as at Bavian ; their insignia are the same, those sceptres with a ring in the middle, which we never find except in the hands of deities. The sixth in the row also grasps the triple-pointed object that we have already recognised as the prototype of the Greek thunder- bolt. 1 Finally, each god has the short Assyrian sword upon his thigh. To this there is one exception, in the second figure of each group. This figure is seated upon a richly-decorated throne, and has no beard, so that we may look upon it as representing a goddess. The last of the seven deities is also beardless, and, in spite of the sword and the standing attitude, may also be taken to represent a goddess. The tiaras, which are like those of Bavian in shape, each bear a star, the Assyrian ideogram for God? 1 See vol. i. page 75, and fig. 13. 2 The bas-reliefs of Malthaï have been described by Layard {Nineveh, vol. i. pp. 230, 231), and, with greater minuteness, by Place (M'm're, vol. ii. pp. 153-160).