Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/371

 Metal Dishes and Utensils. OJ form. The interior of each oval contains very small groups of figures separated from one another by four horizontal lines. We may quote a cup figured by Layard as a last example of this exotic style of decoration. In the centre there are four full-face heads with Egyptian wigs (Fig. 216). Around them a mountainous country is figured in relief, and sprinkled with trees and stags engraved with the point. The wide border, which is unfortunately very much mutilated, is covered with groups of figures apparently copied from some Egyptian monument, if we may judge from the attitudes and costume. One figure, whose torso has entirely disappeared, wears the pscJient and brandishes a mace over his head ; the movement is almost identical with that of the victorious Pharaoh with w r hom we Fig. 216. — Part of a bronze cup or platter. Diameter about 9 inches. British Museum. are so familiar. A goddess, who might be Isis, stands opposite to him. In another part of the border there is a misshapen monster crowned with feathers and resembling the Egyptian Bes. 1 Side by side with these platters we find others on which nothing occurs to suggest foreign influence. Take, for instance, the example reproduced in Fig. 208. In the centre there is a small silver boss, while the rest of the flat surface is occupied by the fine diaper pattern made up of six-petalled flowers that we have already met with on the carved thresholds (Vol. I. Fig. 96). The hollow border is ornamented with four lines of 1 Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. figs. 280, 281.