This hypothesis is confirmed by one of M. Place's discoveries at Khorsabad.[257] There, in front of the Harem, he found several large fragments of a round cedar-wood beam almost as thick as a man's body. It was cased in a bronze sheath, very much oxydized and resembling the scales of a fish in arrangement (Fig. 72). The metal was attached to the wood by a large number of bronze nails. Comparing these remains with certain bas-reliefs in which different kinds of trees appear (Fig. 27) we can easily see that the Ninevite sculptors meant to represent the peculiar roughnesses of palm bark. Their usual methods are modified a little by the requirements of the material and the size of the beam upon which it was used. Each scale was about 4-1/2 inches high, and according to the calculations of M. Place, the whole mast must have been from five-and-thirty to forty feet high. Working for spectators on a lower level and at some distance, the smith thought well to make his details as regular and strongly marked as he could; to each scale or leaf he gave a raised edge to mark its contour and distinguish it from the rest. The general effect was thus obtained by deliberate exaggeration of the relief and by a conventionality that was justified by the conditions of the problem to be solved. [Illustration: FIG. 71.--Homage to _Samas_ or _Shamas_. Tablet from Sippara. Actual size. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] At a little distance from this broken beam M. Place found a leaf of gold which is now in the Louvre; it presents the same ovoid forms as the bronze sheathing, and, moreover, the numerous nail holes show that it was meant to fulfil the same purpose as the bronze plates. The place in which it was found, its dimensions and form, all combine to prove that it was laid upon the bronze as we should lay gold leaf. It bears an inscription in cuneiform characters. [Illustration: FIG. 72.--Sheath of a cedar-wood mast, bronze.] We are inclined to take these plates for models in restoring the columns of the Sippara tabernacle. There is nothing in the richness of this double covering of bronze and gold to cause surprise, as the inscription which covers part of the face and the whole of the back of the tablet is nothing but a long enumeration of the gifts made to the shrine of Samas by the reigning king and his predecessors. This column has both capital and base. The former cannot have been of stone; a heavy block of basalt or even of limestone would be quite out of place in such a situation. As for the base it is hardly more than a repetition of the capital, and must have been of the same material; and that material was metal, the only substance that, when bent by the hand or beaten by the hammer, takes almost of its own motion those graceful curves that we call _volutes_.