Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/321

 Characteristics of Chald/eo-Assyrian Sculpture. chiselled in anything approaching life size. Still less were such things made in Assyria, where no terra-cotta figure even of the deity to whom the names of Istar, Beltis, Mylitta, and Zarpanitu have all been given, has yet been found. It was, however, at Kouyundjik that the only nude female torso yet discovered in Mesopotamia was dug up. It bears the name Assurbilkala, and is now, as we have said above, in the British Museum. 1 Among the ivories, indeed, we find female statuettes in which we are tempted to recognize the same goddess ; but where were those ivories carved ? We have good reason to believe that not a few are of Phoenician workmanship. The real national art of Assyria must be sought in the palace reliefs, and in that long illustrated chronicle of the court, the chase, and the royal campaigns, woman plays a very subordinate part. It has been thought that a tall, beardless individual who occurs near one of the doorways of Assurnazirpal's palace, in the place generally reserved for divinities, should be accepted as a goddess (Fig. 162). 2 She is winged, and her hair is gathered together at the back of the neck, one long knotted and tasselled tress falling nearly to her loins. Her right arm is raised, her left lowered ; in her left hand she holds a small wreath or garland. A wide girdle at the waist confines a long robe falling to the feet, and a fringed and flounced mantle. Nothing is seen through this drapery, such as amplitude of bosom or hips, to suggest the female sex, while the jewels that may be noticed on the neck and wrists and in the ears are also to be found on figures that are certainly male. In fact there is nothing to suggest a woman but the arrangement of the hair and a certain un- wonted refinement in the execution of the features. And it is only by external signs like these, by the pose and the costume, that the few women in the bas-reliefs are to be recognized. This observation holds good for the queen of Assurbanipal as well as for the musicians who celebrate his victories and the captives led into slavery by the Assyrian armies. We can hardly say then that woman had any place in Assyrian art; she was represented, if at all, only by her robes. In the 1 See above, page 98. 2 La yard, Monuments, first series, plate 7. VOL. II. P P