A HISTORY
OF
ART IN CHALDAEA & ASSYRIA
FROM THE FRENCH OF GEORGES PERROT,
PROFESSOR IN THE FACULTY OF LETTERS, PARIS; MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, AND CHARLES CHIPIEZ.
ILLUSTRATED WITH FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO ENGRAVINGS IN THE TEXT AND FIFTEEN STEEL AND COLOURED PLATES.
_IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I._
TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY WALTER ARMSTRONG, B.A., Oxon.,
AUTHOR OF "ALFRED STEVENS," ETC.
[Illustration]
London: CHAPMAN AND HALL, Limited. New York: A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON. 1884.
London: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL.
PREFACE.
In face of the cordial reception given to the first two volumes of MM. Perrot and Chipiez's History of Ancient Art, any words of introduction from me to this second instalment would be presumptuous. On my own part, however, I may be allowed to express my gratitude for the approval vouchsafed to my humble share in the introduction of the History of Art in Ancient Egypt to a new public, and to hope that nothing may be found in the following pages to change that approval into blame.
W. A.
_October 10, 1883._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHALDAEO-ASSYRIAN CIVILIZATION.
PAGE
Sec. 1. Situation and Boundaries of Chaldaea and Assyria 1-8
Sec. 2. Nature in the Basin of the Euphrates and Tigris 8-13
Sec. 3. The Primitive Elements of the Population 13-21
Sec. 4. The Wedges 21-33
Sec. 5. The History of Chaldaea and Assyria 33-55
Sec. 6. The Chaldaean Religion 55-89
Sec. 7. The People and Government 89-113
CHAPTER II.
THE PRINCIPLES AND GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHALDAEO-ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE.
Sec. 1. Materials 114-126
Sec. 2. The General Principles of Form 126-146
Sec. 3. Construction 146-200
Sec. 4. The Column 200-221
Sec. 5. The Arch 221-236
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria, v. 1
- 2: A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria, v. 1
- 3: In Lower Chaldaea 129 36
- 4: Terra cotta cylinders in elevation
- 5: Interior of a house supported by wooden pillars
- 6: Decoration of one of the harem gates
- 7: Obverse 350 162
- 8: The primitive civilization of Chaldaea
- 9: To the Greeks and Romans as Mesopotamia
- 10: Chaldaea was older than Assyria
- 11: Taking Assyria proper at its greatest development
- 12: For the point where the Euphrates enters on the alluvium
- 13: It hardly ever rains in Chaldaea
- 14: A canal hollowed out between two clearly marked banks
- 15: In Chaldaea there is nothing of the kind
- 16: Rawlinson's Herodotus 4 vols
- 17: That they found a plain in the land of Shinar
- 18: The terms used by Berosus are vague enough
- 19: Susiana borders upon Chaldaea and belongs
- 20: Granting that the Aryans did settle in Chaldaea
- 21: The art of writing and the most essential industries
- 22: Stanislas Guyard shares the ideas of M
- 23: Though abridged and simplified
- 24: As the exclusive constituents of its character
- 25: In its final condition as solid terra cotta
- 26: These triangles were sometimes horizontal
- 27: Any appreciable influence upon the plastic arts
- 28: Expedition scientifique de Mesopotamie
- 29: Entitled Der Ursprung der Kyprischen Sylbenschrift
- 30: The exploration of the ruins in Chaldaea
- 31: 60 Assurbanipal took Susa in 660
- 32: Ourkam is the Menes of Chaldaea
- 33: That led to the partition of Mesopotamia
- 34: Whose residence was at CALACH Nimroud
- 35: This building is now known as Kouyundjik
- 36: But the Assyrians reckoned entirely upon terror
- 37: Under the leadership of CYAXARES
- 38: Some of these structures were raised in Nineveh itself
- 39: So was the temple of Nebo at Borsippa
- 40: English vice consul at Bassorah
- 41: OPPERT and MENANT Paris 1865
- 42: But the Chaldaean sepulchre is mute
- 43: And when Berosus determined to write his history in Greek
- 44: But even in Chaldaea art was closely united with religion
- 45: The extended claws seeming to grasp the soil Fig
- 46: The belief in sorcery never died out in Chaldaea
- 47: And the Chaldaeans were fond of such reading
- 48: Or ten sosses or fifty twelves
- 49: Founded upon a sexagesimal numeration
- 50: And those Epigenes himself saw
- 51: From Layard's Monuments of Nineveh
- 52: Preserving for us the real Chaldaean original
- 53: The personification of the earth's fertility
- 54: The extreme diversity of deities
- 55: As that of Istar was used for the goddesses
- 56: The Assyrians appropriated the emblem in question
- 57: Chaldaea was the mother country of the Assyrians
- 58: MUeLLER'S Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum
- 59: Sur le Systeme metrique assyrien
- 60: The true Chaldaean form is Bab Ilou
- 61: Their hierarchy was headed by an archimagus
- 62: For Chaldaea was a southern Holland
- 63: In Chaldaea there is nothing of the kind
- 64: The King Sargon and his Grand Vizier
- 65: And the genius of the sovereign
- 66: Of Sennacherib and Assurbanipal
- 67: In certain bas reliefs of Assurbanipal
- 68: Chaldaea was the cradle of the civilization
- 69: When desiccation was carried far enough
- 70: 133 The Babylonian bricks were
- 71: Alabaster is there to be met with in great quantities
- 72: To experienced masons and bricklayers
- 73: Than those of Kurdistan and Armenia
- 74: Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon
- 75: In the British Museum Nimroud Gallery
- 76: Over which its imposing mass is spread
- 77: Between the great plains of Mesopotamia
- 78: By their conspicuous elevation
- 79: And that partly because Chaldaean art
- 80: But the buildings of Mesopotamia
- 81: Just as at the present moment the inhabitants of Mossoul
- 82: In Assyria limestone was always within reach
- 83: And nearly all these drains were vaulted
- 84: Expedition scientifique de Mesopotamie
- 85: 155 tou kataskeuasmatos dia tou chronou diapeptokotos ii
- 86: The crenellations are omitted here
- 87: In the enceinte surrounding the town
- 88: The mortar is composed of lime and ashes
- 89: For mortar they used hot bitumen
- 90: It rained less in Chaldaea than in Assyria
- 91: Long conduits of terra cotta see Fig
- 92: Without going as far as Mesopotamia
- 93: Place mentions rollers of limestone
- 94: At the first glance the appearance of a vault was complete
- 95: The masons of Mossoul use stone and mortar
- 96: As for circular and polygonal rooms
- 97: Section through the palace at Sarbistan
- 98: Restoration of a hall in the harem at Khorsabad
- 99: Their roofs are covered with two cubits of earth
- 100: It is taken from a house inhabited by Yezidis
- 101: The houses of the Armenian peasantry
- 102: Terra cotta cylinders in elevation
- 103: Using doorways of these extravagant dimensions
- 104: Its inhabitants were strangely industrious and inventive
- 105: 234 In the bas relief from Kouyundjik
- 106: In passing the Mesopotamian mounds
- 107: As for the tall and slender columns themselves
- 108: Cylinder of green feldspar in the British Museum
- 109: Place's observations Ninive et l'Assyrie
- 110: Which float them down to Hillah
- 111: La Sculpture assyrienne Revue des Deux Mondes
- 112: AUGUSTE CHOISY'S Note sur la Construction des Voutes
- 113: Layard discovered in a room of one of the Ninevite palaces
- 114: High up on the obverse there is a bas relief
- 115: This kind of tabernacle is bounded
- 116: At Sippara the canopy rests upon the capital itself
- 117: In the fragmentary column from Khorsabad Fig
- 118: The ibex horns and the volutes
- 119: In the south western palace at Nimroud
- 120: Facade of an Assyrian building
- 121: Sir Henry Layard 277 found four bases of limestone Fig
- 122: And of the more durable stone supports of the Assyrians
- 123: It would have been found under the charcoal
- 124: A procedure from which upon the very soil of the East
- 125: As to whether they were of pise
- 126: This ornamental archivolt is of enamelled bricks
- 127: In their disinclination to use stone voussoirs
- 128: It has three voussoirs on each side
- 129: At different points on the Khorsabad mound
- 130: Carried farther in Mesopotamia than in Egypt
- 131: Of which LAYARD gives a sketch Discoveries
- 132: And pavements of limestone slabs
- 133: From fragments found at Khorsabad
- 134: Bronze foot from the Balawat gates and its socket
- 135: Both at Warka and in the Khorsabad harem
- 136: That form is the crenellation with which
- 137: Battlements from the Khorsabad Observatory
- 138: In the Kouyundjik bas relief Fig
- 139: Rock cut Stele from Kouyundjik
- 140: Gustave Schlumberger has become possessed of a few pieces
- 141: PLACE in the palace of Sargon Ninive
- 142: And also exhibited in the Nimroud central saloon
- 143: From the ruins of Chaldaea no colossi
- 144: The slabs were of gypsum or limestone
- 145: His slabs were not only let into each other at the angles
- 146: There were ten upon a single facade
- 147: These plinths are from two to nearly four feet high
- 148: The Medes and Persians invented nothing
- 149: And the eyebrows were tinted black
- 150: Plan and elevation of part of a facade at Warka
- 151: We can hardly doubt that the Chaldaeans
- 152: The material for which was furnished by enamelled brick
- 153: Another is the fragment of a wing
- 154: Because the bricks were painted before firing
- 155: Are identical with those employed by the Chaldaean potter
- 156: Detail from enamelled archivolt
- 157: In the bricks from Nimroud on the other hand
- 158: Ivory tablet in the British Museum
- 159: But Layard believes its type to have been furnished
- 160: Are skilfully mingled with the fan shaped palmettes
- 161: Not content with this general view of Assyrian decoration
- 162: 330 Exploration archeologique
- 163: Decoratively they seem allied to the cones of Warka
- 164: Of whom Ctesias was both the guest and physician
- 165: At many centres in Sindh and the Punjab
- 166: By Nebuchadnezzar and his successors
- 167: Finally Nabounid took up the quest
- 168: In the palace of Assurnazirpal at Nimroud
- 169: Oppert gives a translation of it
- 170: Leon HEUZEY Revue archeologique
- 171: In speaking of the great works carried out by Nebuchadnezzar
- 172: Behind the sledge spare ropes and levers are carried
- 173: 414 A cord runs over it and supports a bucket
- 174: From the Balawat gates in the British Museum
- 175: The chief desire of the sculptor was to be understood
- 176: HALEVY disputes this reading of the word
- 177: Chaldaean and Assyrian Notions as to a Future Life
- 178: Both Loftus and Taylor received the same impression
- 179: On the one hand and Nedjef on the other
- 180: Their situation in the lowest part of the funerary mounds
- 181: It is called in Assyrian ekimmou or egimmou
- 182: Istar herself was obliged to submit to this law
- 183: The Assyrians invented nothing
- 184: Which Peretie acquired at Hama in Northern Syria
- 185: Like those of the genii in the second division
- 186: The poor quadruped bears on his back
- 187: Rassam found tombs at Kouyundjik
- 188: HALEVY in the Revue archeologique
- 189: First part Revue archeologique vol
- 190: Funerary architecture is not content
- 191: Joined together with reeds soaked in bitumen
- 192: Then I carried away their corpses into Assyria
- 193: The history of Ninus and Semiramis as Ctesias tells it
- 194: Attempts to restore the Principal Types
- 195: 37 or the Birs Nimroud Fig
- 196: Amongst the oldest of the Chaldaean cities
- 197: Taylor and Loftus at Warka Fig
- 198: Chipiez has restored two varieties
- 199: Double ramped Chaldaean Temple
- 200: SQUARE ASSYRIAN TEMPLERestored by Ch
- 201: It was the same with the Observatory at Khorsabad
- 202: Like the courtyards of a modern mosque
- 203: And yet the diameter of 600 feet for Babil is
- 204: As to whether his Larissa was Calah Nimroud
- 205: Even at Khorsabad itself the figure continually crops up
- 206: Even after the platform had been thoroughly explored
- 207: That this Khorsabad zigguratt was
- 208: Plan of a small temple at Nimroud
- 209: Arrangement deals with the capture of an Armenian city
- 210: Comparison between the Chaldaean Temple and that of Egypt
- 211: It was quite otherwise with the zigguratt
