Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/378

40 A History of Art in Chalut- a and Assyria. We may, then, consider it certain that it was not Egyptian industry that scattered these vessels so widely, from the banks of the Euphrates to those of the Arno and the Tiber, not even ex- cepting from this statement those examples on which Egyptian taste has left the strongest mark. Egypt thus put out of the question, we cannot hesitate between Mesopotamia and Phoenicia. If the cups of Nimroud were not made where they were found, it was from Phoenicia that they were imported. The composite character of the ornamentation with which many of them were covered is consistent with all we know of the taste and habits of Phoenician industry, as we shall have occasion to show in the sequel. On the other hand we must not forget at how early a date work in metal was developed in the workshops of Mesopotamia. Exquisite as it is, the decoration of the best of these vases would be child's play to the master workmen who hammered and chiselled such pictures in bronze as those that have migrated from Balawat to the British Museum. We are inclined to believe that the fabrication of these cups began in Mesopotamia ; that the first models were issued from the workshops of Babylon and Nineveh, and exported thence into Syria ; and that the Phoenicians, who imitated everything — everything, at least, that had a ready sale — acclimatized the industry among themselves and even carried it to perfection. In order to give variety to the decoration of the vases sent by them to every country of Western Asia and Southern Europe, they drew more than once from that store-house of Egyptian ideas into which they were accustomed to dive with such free hands ; and this would account for the com- bination of motives of different origin that we find on some of the cups. Vases thus decorated must have become very popular, and both as a result of commerce and of successful wars, must have entered the royal treasures of Assyria in great numbers. We know how often, after the tenth century, the sovereigns of Calah and Nineveh overran Palestine, as well as Upper and Lower Syria. After each campaign long convoys of plunder wended their way through the defiles of the Amanus and Anti-Lebanon, and the fords of the Euphrates, to the right bank of the Tigris. The Assyrian conquerors were not content with crowding the store-rooms of their palaces with the treasures thus won, they often transported the whole