Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/327

DECORATION. 305 disprove the hypothesis of a direct plagiarism. The commercial relations between the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates date from a much more remote epoch, and about the commencement of the eighteenth dynasty the Egyptians seem to have occupied in force the basin of the Khabour, the principal affluent of the Euphrates. Layard found many traces of their passage over and sojourn in that district, among them a series of scarabs, many of which bore the superscription of Thothmes III. 1 So that the points of contact were numerous enough, and the mutual intercourse sufficiently intimate and prolonged, to account for the assimilation by Mesopotamian artists of a motive taken from the flora of Egypt and to be seen on almost every object imported from the FIG. 133. Bouquet of flowers and buds ; from Layard. Nile valley. This imitation appears all the more probable as in the paintings of Theban tombs dating from a much more remote period than the oldest Ninevite remains, the pattern with its alternate bud and flower is complete. Many examples may be found in the plates of Prisse d'Avennes' great work ; 2 one is reproduced in our Fig. 134. The Assyrians borrowed their motive from Egypt, but they gave it more than Egyptian perfection. They gave it the definitive shapes that even Greece did not disdain to copy. In the Egyptian 1 LAYARD, Discoveries,^. 281. 2 PRISSE D'AVENNES, Histoire de /' Art cgyptien d'aprcs les Monuments (2 vols folio) : see the plates entitled Couronnements et Frises fleuronnes. R R