This religion was the cause why the Persians had no special temples, but only small altars. The vaulted azure heavens were the glorious temple of Ormuzd, which he was compelled to share with Ahriman. Neither light nor darkness, however, could be carved or painted; the dynamic force of the artists was therefore directed to matter-of-fact scenes, to ornamentations, showing a better balance between forms and ideas. The rosette, the palmette, the sun with its disc, the moon, the pine-cone, the pomegranate, intermixed with clearly-defined, and not much entwined, geometrical patterns, were the principal means of ornamentation. At a later period a tendency to allegorical and emblematic figures appeared. The artists composed cherubim, chimeras, basilisks, griphons, kentaurs, and sphinxes; undoubtedly influenced by Indian and Egyptian ideas, for Nineveh and Babylon were the ancient Venice and Genoa of the far East, situated as they were on the commercial high-roads, the twin-rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. The Babylonian textile fabrics were highly appreciated from time immemorial. Serpents and trees, winged witches and flying-fish, were first spell-bound in Babylonian tapestry, and then carved in stone on the walls of Nineveh. The immense riches which we possess in the British Museum, enable every student of art-history to see before him the active life of the Cis-Himâlâyans, whether as Assyrians, Persians, Medes, or Babylonians, in clear and distinct outlines. Their knowledge of embossing gold and silver was considerable. Their household furniture, drinking cups, tables, candelabra, bracelets, and rings are of strictly _architectural construction_. We miss that overburdening confusion in ornamentation which distinguishes the Indian products; and the more correct treatment of ornamental outlines, especially to be seen in their mosaics and tesselated pavements, approaches Greek forms.