Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/383

Arms. 345 The sword is the king of weapons. By a kind of instinctive metaphor every language makes it the symbol of the valour and prowess of him who wears it. It was, therefore, only natural that the Assyrian scabbard, especially when worn by the king, should be adorned with lions (Figs. 82, 222, 223). These were of bronze, no doubt, and applied. In the last of our three examples a small lion is introduced below the larger couple. The sword- blade itself may have been decorated in the same fashion. The Assyrians understood damascening, an art that in after ages was to render famous the blades forged in the same part of the world, at Damascus and Bagdad. The Arab armourers did no more, perhaps, than practise an art handed down to them from imme- morial times, and brought to perfection many centuries before in the Figs. 222, 223. — Sword scabbards, from the reliefs ; from Layard. workshops of Mesopotamia. At any rate we know that two small bronze cubes found at Nimroud were each ornamented on one face with the figure in outline of a scarab with extended wings, and that the scarab in question was carried out by inlaying a thread of gold into the bronze (Fig. 224). Meanwhile we may point to an Assyrian scimitar, the blade of which is inscribed with cuneiform characters. 1 In the reliefs we find a large number of shields with their round 1 Boscawen, Notes on an Ancient Assyrian Bronze Sword bearing a Cuneiform Inscription (in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archœology, vol. iv. p. 347, with one plate). VOL. II. Y Y