That these articles of personal jewelry were made in the country is proved by the fact that not a few of the moulds used by the jewellers for the patterns most in favour have been found. They are small slabs of serpentine or very hard limestone, in one face of which the desired pattern is cut in intaglio (Figs. 246 and 247). Wherever the pattern communicates with the outer edge by a small opening, it may have been used to receive the liquid metal; where no such gutter exists, the design must have been stamped, the leaves of metal being placed over the hollow and beaten into it with a mallet.[443] [Illustration: FIG. 240.--Bracelet. Diameter 5 inches. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] It was by this latter process, no doubt, that those buttons which have been found in such quantities by every one who has explored the Assyrian palaces, were made. They are sometimes small disks ornamented with concentric bands (Fig. 248), sometimes lozenges with beaded edges (Fig. 249). These buttons have sometimes staples for attachment like ours, but more often they are pierced with a small hole for the passage of a metal thread. They were thus fixed on the king’s robes and the harness of his horses. Our Fig. 250, which is copied from a bas-relief at Kouyundjik, shows how the leather bands that encircled the necks of the chariot-horses and supported bells, metal rosettes and coloured tassels, were decorated.[444] [Illustration: FIG. 241.--Bracelets; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIG. 242.--Ear-drop; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIGS. 243, 244.--Ear-drops; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIGS. 248, 249.--Gold buttons. British Museum.] [Illustration: FIG. 245.--Necklace. British Museum.] The habits and tastes of the Oriental saddler have not changed since the days of antiquity. We cannot get a better idea of Assyrian harness than by examining the sets exposed for sale in the present day in the bazaars of Turkey, Persia, and India. More than once, when some Kurdish bey rode past him on his Arab, Sir H. Layard felt as if he had seen a vision from one of the Ninevite reliefs. The leather stitched with bright coloured threads, the housings of gaudy wool, the hawk’s bells tinkling round the horse’s neck, were all survivals from the past. The equipment of a Spanish mule, or the harness that used to be worn by the waggon teams of Eastern France within the memory of men not yet old, gives some idea of the effect produced. [Illustration: FIGS. 246, 247.--Moulds for trinkets; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIGS. 248, 249.--Gold buttons. British Museum.] from Layard.] [Illustration: FIG. 250.--Part of the harness of a chariot-horse.]