Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/367

Metal Dishes and Utensils. 329 with which some of the bands are decorated a small silver stud, slightly raised above the rest of the surface, is sometimes placed, and in a few cases the points of the great rosette that occupies the centre of the plate radiate from a centre of gold, silver being banished to the small rosettes at the edge. Again, the middle is sometimes a kind of boss, over the whole of which traces of gold may still be distinguished. The decoration of these paterœ is always inside : on the out- side nothing is to be seen but the confused reverse of the pattern, such as may be seen on the left of our Fig. 208. I have found but one exception to this rule in a much deeper cup on the outside of which a lion hunt is represented. 1 In that case figures engraved within the vase would have been invisible, for it is very deep. In most cases the ruling principle of the decoration is the division of the disk into three, four, or five concentric circles, but in some instances the whole field, with the exception of a simple border, is occupied by one subject. In those cups upon which the greatest care and thought seem to have been lavished, the figures are beaten up into relief with the hammer and then finished with the burin. In the others the whole design is carried out with the latter tool, which is sometimes used with a degree of refinement that is amazing, As an example of this we may quote a patera that has been cleaned and put on view quite recently. Stags march in file around its five concentric zones, which are all of the same width. It is difficult to explain either the fineness of the lines or the regularity of the design, each animal being an accurate reproduction of his neighbour and the inter- vening spaces being exactly equal. One is almost tempted to believe that the work must have been done by machinery. We know, however, that such mechanical helps were unknown to the ancients, and, although there are many cups and vases at the museum bearing a strong mutual resemblance, we cannot point to any two that are exactly similar. To give a fair idea of the variety of their designs we should have to reproduce not only all the cups figured by Sir H. Layard, but several more that have only been prepared for exhibition quite lately. Among the latter are some very curious ones. We cannot afford the space for all this, and must be content to give a few examples chosen 1 Layard, Monuments, second series, plate 68. VOL. II. U U