Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/229

Chaldean Sculpture. 199 they were only placed on the stone on account of their supposed power of interesting the gods in the preservation of the rights and titles thereon set out. Their execution was therefore left to mere workmen, who sculptured the symbols and animal forms in the most mechanical and perfunctory fashion. They never dreamt of referring to nature and so giving some variety to the traditional Fig. 1 10. — The Caillou Michaux. Height 19! inches. Drawn by Saint-Elrue Gautier. forms. This art, if we may call it so, was hieratic in the fullest sense of the term. From our point of view, then, we should gain nothing by multiplying the number of these monuments. They are chiefly interesting to the historian of law and religious beliefs in Chaldaea. The remains for whose recovery we look with the most anxious hope are those of what we have called the classic age of Chaldœan