Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/361

Furniture. 323 superficial ; they extend entirely through the pieces. But we do not believe they were produced by any artificial process. If the Assyrians had understood how to dye ivory, would they not have dyed it red and blue as well as the colours above mentioned ? But they did nothing of the sort. The tints in question are, then, to be otherwise explained. They are not the direct result of fire. Wherever the flame has touched the ivory it has calcined it, and left nothing but a whitish friable substance. They may, however, have been caused by the long continued impregnation with smoke and carbon received from a soil filled with ashes and washed by the rain. An effect of the same kind is produced upon objects buried in a peaty soil. In any case several of the fragments that have come down to us are of a fine, glossy black, like that of ebony. 1 In beds, tables, chairs, and footstools the framework was of wood and the decoration of metal, an important role being assigned to incrustations of ivory, of lapis lazuli, of crystals, and other materials of the kind. But there were also pieces of furniture whose purpose made them well fitted to be carried out entirely in bronze ; such, for example, were the tripods on which the braziers or censers, used in sacrifices, were placed. We have seen these figured in the reliefs (Vol. I., Figs. 68 and 155) ; the Louvre possesses one that was found at Babylon (Fig. 203). It is formed of three stems very slightly inclined inwards, and bound together at the top by a circle decorated with incised ornaments and four rams' heads in relief. Towards the bottom they are held together by three straight cross-bars, the points of junction with the legs being masked by three human faces. The feet are shaped after those of oxen. Cords are twisted round the point of junction of foot and leg, then crossed in front of the fetlock and knotted at the back. 2 The chafing-dishes placed upon these bronze tripods were of the same material. Chaldaeans and Assyrians, although they neglected to give their earthen vessels any great beauty of form or richness 1 My researches were not confined to the ivories in the cases. T also went through the thousands of pieces in the closed drawers which are not shown, in some instances because of their broken condition, in others because they are merely duplicates of better specimens in the selection exhibited. 2 The feet found by Sir H. Layard at Nimroud must, as he conjectured, have belonged to one of these tripods (Discoveries, pp. 178-179).