Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/390

 352 A History of Art in Chald^ea and Assyria. the Assyrian tomb has so far avoided discovery. The tomb alone could offer a safe asylum to such treasures, and preserve them in its shadows for the inquisitive eyes of modern archaeologists. Before being abandoned to the slow effects of time, the temples and palaces were pillaged. Here and there, however, in some well contrived hiding-place or forgotten corner, a few trinkets may have escaped the eyes of greedy conquerors, or of the later marauders who sounded the ruins in every direction for the sake of the precious metals they might contain. Fig. 229. — Comb. Actual size. Louvre. The oldest jewels left to us by these peoples are those found in the most ancient tombs at Warka. Their forms are simple enough — bronze bracelets made of a bar tapering rapidly to each end and beaten with a hammer into a slight oval (Figs. 232, 233). These bars are sometimes very thick, as our first example shows. The golden ear-drops from the same tombs (Fig. 234) are made in the same way. At Nineveh the art is more advanced. We may form our ideas of it from the bas-reliefs, where people are shown with jewels about their arms, their necks, and hanging on their cheeks ; and