Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/339

 Ceramics. 301 small handles (Fig. 178), the handles of the other two are larger and more boldly salient, while in one they are twisted to look like ropes. The vase last figured, like many others from the same place, is glazed, and glazed in two colours, a bluish-green round the neck and a decided yellow upon the body. At the line where they P'igs. 170 — 173. — Assyrian vases ; from Layard. meet the two colours run one into the other, producing a far from disagreeable effect. It will be noticed that the decoration upon all these objects is very slight. We can point to little beyond the double row of chevrons on one of the amphorae (Fig. 178), and the collar of reversed leaves round a kind of alabastron found at the same place (Fig. 181). Figs. 174—176. — Goblets; from Layard. Fig. 177. — Ewer; from Layard. The taste for decorating their works seems to have spread among the Assyrian potters between the ninth and seventh cen- turies b.c. At least many traces of it have been found among the remains at Kouyundjik. The date is fixed for us by a fragment on which the name of Esarhacldon occurs, the letters of which it is composed standing out in light against a dull black background. There is no further ornament than a line of zig-zags traced with some brown pigment. The fragment we reproduce (Fig. 182)