Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/389

 Instruments of the Toilet and Jewelry. 351 We know of nothing among the spoils of Assyria that can be compared to those wooden spoons that the Egyptian workman carved with so light a hand ; 1 but two objects found at Kouyundjik prove that the Assyrians knew how to give forms elegant and graceful enough, though less original, to objects of the same kind. One of these is a bronze fork, the other a spoon of the same material. Cables, zig-zags, and beads are used to ornament them, and the whole is ; a good example of Assyrian taste in little things. s lïLtde. ç Fig. 228. — Comb. Actual size. Louvre. So far we have treated Assyrian metal-work of the ornamental kind only as it is seen in bronze. Hardly any objects of gold or silver have, in fact, been discovered in Mesopotamia. And yet it is impossible that those two metals can have been very rare in the Nineveh of the Sargonidsor the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar ; war and industry certainly led to considerable accumulations of both. We must find a reason for their absence in the success with which 1 Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 394-395, and figs. 257, 329-331.