So far we have treated Assyrian metal-work of the ornamental kind only as it is seen in bronze. Hardly any objects of gold or silver have, in fact, been discovered in Mesopotamia. And yet it is impossible that those two metals can have been very rare in the Nineveh of the Sargonids or the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar; war and industry certainly led to considerable accumulations of both. We must find a reason for their absence in the success with which the Assyrian tomb has so far avoided discovery. The tomb alone could offer a safe asylum to such treasures, and preserve them in its shadows for the inquisitive eyes of modern archæologists. Before being abandoned to the slow effects of time, the temples and palaces were pillaged. Here and there, however, in some well contrived hiding-place or forgotten corner, a few trinkets may have escaped the eyes of greedy conquerors, or of the later marauders who sounded the ruins in every direction for the sake of the precious metals they might contain. [Illustration: FIG. 229.--Comb. Actual size. Louvre.] The oldest jewels left to us by these peoples are those found in the most ancient tombs at Warka. Their forms are simple enough--bronze bracelets made of a bar tapering rapidly to each end and beaten with a hammer into a slight oval (Figs. 232, 233). These bars are sometimes very thick, as our first example shows. The golden ear-drops from the same tombs (Fig. 234) are made in the same way. At Nineveh the art is more advanced. We may form our ideas of it from the bas-reliefs, where people are shown with jewels about their arms, their necks, and hanging on their cheeks; and also from a few original specimens that have escaped the general wreck. In the foundations of Sargon’s palace, under the massive threshold, were found too, together with a large number of cylinders, the remains of necklaces made up of pierced stones, such as carnelian, red and yellow jasper, brown sardonyx, amethyst, &c., cut into cylinders, polygons, medallions, and into the shapes of a pear and of an olive or date-stone (Fig. 235). This use of precious stones was a survival from the days when pebbles were turned to the same purpose. Earrings were made in the same fashion (Figs. 236, 237). In one of the reliefs we see a eunuch wearing a necklace in which double cones alternate with disks (Fig. 238). The same elements could of course be used for bracelets or armlets, by shortening the wire on which they were strung. From an art point of view such a jewel was quite primitive; all its beauty lay in the rich colours of its separate stones, among which beads of glass and enamelled earthenware have also been found. [Illustration: FIGS. 230, 231.--Bronze fork and spoon; from SMITH’S _Assyrian Discoveries_.]