CHAPTER II.

ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA.

Possible Priority to Egyptian Pottery.--Similarity between Assyrian and Egyptian.--The Course followed by both Arts.--Unbaked Bricks.--Baked Bricks.--Writing Tablets.--Seals.--Vases.--Terra-cottas.--Porcelain.--Glazing and Enamelling.--Tin.--Colored Enamels.--Babylonian Bricks.--Glazes.

[Illustration: Fig. 44.--Pottery found in the Tombs above the Palaces of Nimroud.]

Although we have taken Egypt as our starting-point, there may have been a pottery antecedent to that we have considered. Looking farther east for the cradle of the human race, knowledge and art may have spread east and west from the Euphrates, the great river of Babylon. Egypt having been first inhabited by settlers wandering from the province of which that city became the capital, who found in the Nile a river resembling, in many respects, that which they had left, these colonists may have carried with them some knowledge of the uses of clay. However this may be, it is beyond question that the oldest pottery of which the age is known is Egyptian, and that the knowledge acquired from the East was returned with interest.

[Illustration: Fig. 45.--Terra-cotta Assyrian Venus.]

[Illustration: Fig. 46.--Assyrian Cylinder, inscribed with the Records of a King’s Reign. (British Museum.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 47.--Inscribed Seal. (Assyrian.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 48.--Seal of Sabaco and Sennacherib.]

[Illustration: Fig. 49.--Impression of Sabaco’s Seal, enlarged.]

[Illustration: Fig. 50.--Back of Assyrian Seal, showing Marks of Fingers.]

[Illustration: Fig. 51.--Fragment in Porcelain (?). (Nimroud.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 52.--Box in Porcelain (?). (Nimroud.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Enamelled Brick. (Louvre.)]

Assyria and Babylonia are almost necessarily considered in conjunction. The latter having been a province of Assyria prior to its assertion of independence, we anticipate, what is actually the case, a close similarity between the ceramic productions of the two countries. In tracing the history of their pottery, we not only discover many points of resemblance between it and that of Egypt, but advance along an exactly parallel line. From sun-dried bricks we pass to burnt bricks, thence to unglazed pottery possessed of an artistic character, thence again to glazed specimens and enamel. In both countries unbaked bricks were made use of in the construction of mound-like foundations for buildings. Walls, houses, and tombs were built of similar materials. In Assyria, bricks were sometimes faced with marble, either externally, for the sake of strength, or to give greater beauty to an interior. Some were gilded and others colored. Small figures of both baked and unbaked clay, and of a religious character, were also made by the Assyrians (Fig. 45). From the stamped and baked bricks much has been learned of Assyrian history and topography, the sites of cities and names of kings having been thus discovered or substantiated. By the same people writing tablets of rectangular, cylindrical, or prismatic shapes were very commonly made of terra-cotta (Fig. 46). They form a very curious remnant of ancient literature, which, thanks to the indestructibility of the material upon which it was written, is still open to the study of the historian. All kinds of records have thus been preserved--religious, legal, and astronomical. The Assyrians and Egyptians both used seals (Figs. 47, 48, 49, and 50) of baked and unbaked clay, in the same way that wax seals are still occasionally appended or attached to documents.

[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Babylonian Baked Brick, with Nebuchadnezzar’s Name. Twelve inches square, three inches thick.]

[Illustration: Fig. 55.--The Mnjellibé, or Kasr. Showing brickwork.]

Many of the vases discovered in the ruined cities of Assyria are clearly to be attributed to foreign occupants, and are therefore of comparatively late date. To this class belong many of the cinerary urns exhumed from the tombs. Ancient and really Assyrian vessels have been discovered of a pale brown clay (Fig. 44), unglazed, and of various shapes, but seldom painted. It is, however, difficult, in many cases, to discover the nationality of the potter or the age of the piece. Of terra-cotta figures of the gods, several have been found, although these must have existed in far greater numbers. Porcelain, or fine glazed pottery (Figs. 51, 52), is rarely met with, and the specimens found are inferior to the Egyptian. The several uses of the ware appear to have been the same in the two countries. For a knowledge of glazing and enamelling, the Assyrians were in all likelihood indebted to the Egyptians. Bricks subjected to these processes, and ornamented with flowers, leaves, and animals, were employed in decorating interiors and even in building walls (Fig. 53). These bricks reveal the fact that the Assyrians were aware of the peculiar suitableness of tin for making a white enamel. The other enamels employed were yellow, brown, blue, and green, and were produced from metals almost identical with those employed by the Egyptians.

[Illustration: Fig. 56.--Terra-cotta Tablet, from Babylon. (British Museum.)]

Like the Assyrian and Egyptian, the Babylonian bricks, whether unbaked or baked, were moulded, and the latter were stamped. Hundreds of these (Fig. 54) bear the stamp of Nebuchadnezzar, the sites where they were found indicating with tolerable exactness the bounds of his kingdom. The extensive use of bricks by the Babylonians may be taken as characteristic of a people inhabiting the country where the Tower of Babel was built (Fig. 55). In many respects the vessels found in Babylonia resemble those of Assyria, so closely, in fact, that they need not here be separately treated. As in the latter country, the Babylonians used terra-cotta writing tablets. Several terra-cotta bas-reliefs have been discovered, of one of the more remarkable examples of which, now in the British Museum, we give the preceding engraving (Fig. 56). This tablet was found near Babylon. The dog is of the huge Thibet breed, and both figures have been modelled. The small size of the pieces would almost preclude their use as ornaments; and Dr. Birch ventures the conjecture that they may have been an artist’s studies for larger works. The fine paste is the same as that used for the writing cylinders.

[Illustration: Fig. 57.--Ram in Baked Clay, from Niffer.]

In regard to the earthen-ware vessels and figures, the same difficulty in determining their age is encountered here that was met with in Assyria. They have been taken from the mounds in large quantities. To this class belongs the ram (Fig. 57) found at Niffer, on the supposed site of ancient Babylon.

[Illustration: Fig. 58.--Glazed Coffins, from Warka.]

The Babylonian glazes resemble the Assyrian, and it may be particularly mentioned that the oxide of tin was employed in making enamel. These glazes are found upon both bricks and vases, and were applied extensively to architectural decoration. At Warka, identified with the ancient Ur of the Chaldees, thousands of coffins made of glazed ware have been exhumed, variously decorated with figures. Of these one specimen is given (Fig. 58).