Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/342

 504 A History of Art in Ciiald.i a and Assyria. example of this decoration is the fine goblet dug up by Place in the Jigan mound (Fig. 186). 1 In all these fragments the decoration is purely geometrical; it is composed of lines, spots, and other motives having no relation Fig. 186.— Goblet. Height, 5 inches. Louvre. to the organic world. A step in advance of this seems, however, to have been taken. On some other fragments from the same districts, files of roughly-suggested birds appear upon the bands and between opposed triangles (Figs. 187 and 188). We shall find S> -- Fig. 187. — Fragment of a vase. Actual size. British Museum. the same motive in Cyprus, at Mycenae, and at Athens, in the pot- tery forming the transition between the purely geometrical period and that in which imitation of life begins. In a fragment which 1 Place, Ninive, vol. ii. p. 150.