Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/298

276 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALD.KA AND ASSYRIA. to a frieze upon which two bulls face each other, their white bodies being divided from the yellow ground by a thick black line. The battlements at the top are dark blue (Fig. 118). An idea of the tints used in this decoration may be obtained from Fig. 2 of our plate xiv. It was upon the upper parts of walls where they were beyond the reach of accidental injury that these painted decorations were placed. M. Place had reason to think that they were also used on the under-sides of vaults. In rooms in which a richer and more permanent kind of ornament was unnecessary, paint alone FIG. 118. Ornament painted upon plaster ; from Layard. was used for decoration. In several chambers cleared by George Smith at Nimroucl, that explorer found horizontal bands of colour, alternately red, green, and yellow, and where the stone casing of the lower walls was not sculptured, these stripes were continued over its surface. 1 The artist to whom the execution of this work was intrusted must have arranged so that his tints were in harmony with those 1 G. SMITH, Assyrian Discoveries, pp. 77, 78. LAYARD (Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 130) also says that some rooms had no other decoration.