Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/168

Mo A History of Art in Cuald.ka akd Assyria. have the same features as their conquerors. 1 The only exception to which we can point is in the case of certain bas-reliefs of Assur- banipal in which the episodes of an expedition into Susiana are retraced. There we can perceive in some of the figures — by no means in all — an endeavour on the part of the sculptor to mark the difference of race otherwise than by details of costume and head-dress. Here and there we find a head that suggests a negro ; 2 but his characteristics are never as clearly marked as in Egypt. This may be merely the result of caprice on the part of some individual artist who has amused himself by repro- ducing with the edge of the chisel some head which had struck his fancy ; but even here we only find one profile several times repeated. The modelling is far from searching, but wherever the work is in fair condition and the scale not too small the character we have described may be easily distinguished. The only differences over which the Assyrian sculptors naturally troubled themselves were those of costume and equipment ; thus we find them recording that the people subdued in one of the expeditions of Sennacherib wore a crown or wreath of feathers about their heads (Fig. 48). 3 So, too, in the relief of a man with apes, the foot-covering, a kind of buskin with up- turned toes (Fig. 64), should be noticed. But the lines of his profile remain unchanged ; and yet there can be no doubt that the sculptor here meant to represent a man of negro race, because, as Layard, who dug up the monument, tells us, traces of black paint might be distinctly perceived upon the faces of this man and his companions. 4 On a Babylonian stele that we have already figured (Fig. 43), some have attempted to recognize a Mongol type, and thence to confirm the hypothesis that would make a Turanian race the founders of the Chaldaean civilization. This, too, we think a mistake. 5 1 On this point again I regret to be unable to agree with M. Menant; I am unable to perceive any of the differences of which he speaks (see p. 258 of his paper). 2 Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 500. 3 Upon the discovery of these figures and their nature, see Layard, Discoveries, p. 230. 4 Layard, Nineveh, vol. i. pp. 126-127. The English explorer himself remarks in speaking of this relief, that the features of the men show nothing of the special type which the artist endeavoured to suggest by this clumsy expedient. 5 This is what M. Menant sees in this Babylonian stele: "It represents a race