Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/358

 32o A History of Art in Chald.ea and Assyria. to deny that some of the ivories were imported ; l but we believe that to have been the exception rather than the rule. We know- both from the sculptured reliefs and from actual finds that ivory was brought into Assyria in its rough state. Layard found some elephant's tusks in the royal houses at Nimroud, 2 and we see others brought by tributaries as presents to the king, both in the reliefs of Assurnazirpal's palace, 3 and in those of Shalmaneser's obelisk. 4 Hence it appears probable that ivory was worked at Nineveh and Babylon, and that probability is changed into a certainty when we examine the other ivories in the same collection. Although not a few of the ivories chiselled in relief offer motives that are strange to Mesopotamian art, it is not so with a series of tablets on which the designs are carried out in pure line and with extreme refinement (Fig. 201). Figures and ornaments are purely Assyrian ; winged genii wearing the horned tiara, dressed as in the reliefs, and surrounded with the rosettes and cable pattern to which we have so often referred, and other motives of the same kind. Among the latter may be noticed the variety of knop and flower border that we find so often in the painted and enamelled decoration, in which the knop is replaced by a disk (see Vol. I., Figs. 117 and 118). We believe the truth to be as follows. A considerable quantity of Indian ivory entered Mesopotamia by the Persian Gulf and the caravan routes. It was there carved by native artists into the various shapes required, but, especially during the heyday of the Assyrian monarchy, it was far from supplying the whole demand. Africa, through Phoenicia, was called upon to make up the deficiency. But the African ivory was not imported in its raw state, it came in in the form of skilfully chiselled plaques that only required mounting ; the merchants, through whom the trade was carried on, delivered sets of these plaques for beds, or chairs, or 1 As soon as these ivories arrived at the British Museum, the learned keeper of the Oriental Antiquities was struck by their Egyptian character. A paper which he published at the time may be consulted with profit (Birch, Observations on two Egyptian cartouches, and some other ivory ornaments found at Nimroud, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, second series, vol. iii. pp. 151- 177.) 2 Layard, Discoveries, p. 195, 3 Layard, Monuments, first series, plate 24. 4 Ibid, plates 55 and 56. In the second stage of reliefs, counting from the bottom.