Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/352

314 A History of Art in Chald.-ea and Assyria. have to begin by renewing- all the wooden parts of the piece, the legs, back and cross-bars. Wood alone could be used for such purposes. Metal would be too heavy if solid, and not stiff and firm enough if hollow. We have, besides, direct proof that the Assyrian joiner so understood his work. u I found among the ruins," says one explorer, " small bulls' heads of copper, repoussé and carefully chased, inside ot which a few fragments of dried wood still remained. These pieces had certainly belonged to chairs exactly similar to those figured in the reliefs." * At Ximroud, in the room in Assurnazirpal's palace in which so many precious objects were discovered, Layard found the royal throne, and close beside it, the stool upon which the royal feet were placed, an arrangement of which we may gain an exact idea from the reliefs (Figs. 47 and 127). The sides of this chair were ornamented with bronze plaques nailed on to wooden panels, and representing winged genii fighting with monsters. The arms were ornamented at the end with rams' heads, and their points of junction with the uprights of the back were strengthened with metal tubes. 2 All the wood had disappeared, but it was impossible to look at the remains for a moment without seeing how they were originally put together and what office they had to fill in the complete piece. Most of the fragments are now in the British Museum. The same collection has been recently enriched by the fragments of another throne, from Van. 3 A claw foot, uprights ending in several rows of dentations, and two winged bulls that once in all probability formed part of the arms, are among the parts preserved. The bulls are without faces, which may have been carried out in some other materials, gold perhaps, or ivory. The wings also are covered with hollows in which inlays of ivory or lapis may have been fixed. From Van also came the remains of another throne which now belongs to M. de Yogiié, who has been good enough to allow us to reproduce the more important fragments. The best of these is one of the front feet which ends at the top in 1 E. Flax din, Voyage archéologique. - Layard, Discoveries, pp. 198, 199. 3 In 1882 these fragments were in the Nimroud central saloon. In the Assyrian side room, close to the door, there is another throne whose bronze casing might be red almost in its entirety. Its decoration is less rich, however, than that of the thrones of which we have been speaking. A poor drawing of it may be found in George Smith's Assyrian Discoveries, p. 432.