Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/351

Furniture. 313 Pure copper seems to have been restricted to kitchen utensils, such as the large cauldrons that were often used as coffers in which to keep small objects of metal, like the little bells of which we have spoken, rosettes, buttons and the feet of tables and chairs not yet mounted, etc. 1 It is probable that these vessels were also used for heating water and cooking food. All these metals, and especially iron and copper, were dearer perhaps in Chaldaea than in Assyria, because Babylon was farther from the mineral region than Nineveh ; but the southern artizans were no less skilful than their northern rivals. In our review of the metal industries we shall borrow more frequently from the north than from the south, but the only reason for the inequality is that Chaldaea has never been the scene of exhaustive and prolific excavations like those of Assyria. § 3. Furniture. Cursing Nineveh and exulting in the prospect of her fall, the prophet Nahum calls to all those who had been crushed by the Assyrian hosts ; he summons all the nations of the east to take their part in the work of revenge and their share in the spoil to be won. " Take ye the spoil of silver," he cries, " take ye the spoil of gold ; for there is none end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture. 2 We shall find all this among our spoils of Nineveh. The princes and nobles of Assyria seem to have had a peculiar love for luxurious furniture. To see this we have only to look at the bas-reliefs, where the artist took the greatest care to imitate every detail of the thrones on which he placed his gods and kings ; and many fragments of these richly decorated chairs have been recovered in the course of the excavations ; with the help of the sculptures they could be put together and the missing parts supplied. The elements of many such restorations exist in the British Museum, and we may well ask why no attempt has been made to reconstitute an Assyrian throne with their help, so as to give an exact idea of the kind of state chair used by a Shalmaneser or a Sennacherib. In order to carry out such a restoration successfully we should 1 Layard, Discoveries, pp. /76-178. z Nahum, ii. 9. VOL. II. S S