Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/474

 450 History of Art in Antiquity. so nearly approach the sculptures at Persepolis as to render probable the supposition of a common origin. Of all the arts of drawing, gem-engraving is perhaps that which requires longest apprenticeship to master its minute and delicate processes. The craft had been practised and handed down from father to son for centuries in Mesopotamia, where from the days of the old Chaldaean kings, hematite, chalcedony, cornelian, sapphire, and other stones were selected for engraving designs or figures upon them. Patient industrial Phoenicia had quickly mastered the secrets of the point and spinning-wheel. The Persians, how- ever, could not be expected to forsake the spear and sword, to which they were accustomed, for tools that would oblige them to sit quietly for hours at a stretch. In speaking of Persian intaglios, therefore, we must be under- stood to mean that the same were ordered by Persians desirous to have seals bearing legends in their own language, or figures representing their deities or their monarchs. Whether the engraver came from Chald^ea or Phoenicia is of little moment; what is important is the fact that these signets bear upon them the mark of having been specially designed for the use and benefit of Persians, and this it is which enables us to place them imme- diately after the sculptures at Persepolis and Susa, which in many respects they complete, and thus add valuable information. They tell us which of the themes exhibited in the decoration of the palaces and the tombs became the favourites for gem>engraving. Thus, for instance, forms, the absence of which we noticed at Persepolis with surprise, occur upon intaglios, and the inference is irresistible that they formed pairt of the ornamentation of the Achamenid buildings now destroyed. Such would be hunting scenes. The part they play in the repertory of Egyptian, Chaldaean, and Assyrian artists is well known. Though the Achaemenidae did not follow the chase with the zest and ardour of the kings of Calach and Nineveh, they had a real taste for the healthy exercise and the perils consequent Upon it. In proof of this the reader may be referred to the signet-cylinder in chalcedony fit^urcd below (Fig. 216). It bears a trilingual inscription; the Persian text says, " I am Darius, king," and the Babylonian version adds a qualificative, " I am Darius, king, great. " As on numbers of Chalda'O-Assyrian gems, here also the main group is enframed by two palms; between these the king, with his Digitized by Google