These pieces of furniture show great variety in their forms and decorative motives. Sometimes the ornament is purely geometrical, like that of the foot shown in our Fig. 195, where it is composed of several rings placed one above the other with a bold torus-like swell in the middle. More frequently, however, the bronze uprights end in capitals resembling a bunch of leaves in shape. We have already encountered this type in the ivories, where it occurs in the balustrade of a small window (Vol. I., Fig. 129); we also find it strongly marked in the throne from Van, where the drooping leaves are chiselled with much care. We find the same motive in a small sandstone capital in the British Museum. It is in one piece with its shaft. We are inclined to think it a part of some stone chair in which the forms of wooden and bronze furniture were copied (Fig. 196).[394] [Illustration: FIG. 196.--Capital and upper part of a small column. Height 2 feet. British Museum.] Two pieces of the same kind found at Nimroud are more complex in design. In one we have a bouquet of leaves reminding us of the Corinthian capital (Fig. 197), while, in the other, a band seems to hold two lance heads, opposed to each other at their base, and two bean-shaped fruits, against the shaft (198). As for the feet of all kinds of furniture, the favourite shapes are pine cones (Figs. 47 and 127) and lions’ paws (Figs. 47 and 199). [Illustration: FIGS. 197, 198.--Fragments of bronze furniture; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIG. 199.--Footstool, from a bas-relief; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIG. 200.--Stool; from Layard.] These elaborate decorations are found not only on the royal thrones but also on the footstools which are their necessary complement (Fig. 199), and on the seats without backs which were used, perhaps, instead of the more unwieldy throne when the king was away from his capital (Fig. 200). The footstool has lions’-claw feet, the more important object has rams’ heads at each end of the upper cross-bar;[395] the leg shows the capital with drooping leaves noticed above; volutes, opposed to each other as in the capital from Persepolis, ornament the cross-bar which holds the uprights together. In this piece of furniture, where the sculptor has confined himself to the scrupulous reproduction of his model, we may see how these objects were upholstered. A cushion of some woven material with long bright-coloured woollen fringes, was fitted to the seat. The whole is characterized by happy proportions and severe simplicity of design. We know from the Sippara tablet that even the gods were sometimes content with such a seat (Vol. I., Fig. 71). The figures of Izdubar and Hea-bani are there introduced between the uprights of Samas’s stool.