Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and BabylonLayard, Austen Henry
History
Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon
Layard, Austen Henry
Babylon (Extinct city); Middle East -- Description and travel; Nineveh (Extinct city); Scientific expeditions
8. Fragment of a very spirited design representing a chariot and horses
passing over a naked figure, pierced through the neck by an arrow. Under
this group are the heads, and parts of the shields, of two Assyrian
warriors. The wounded man wears a fillet round his head, to which is
attached a feather. The horses are blue, and their trappings white; the
wheels of the chariot, yellow. The shields of the warriors are blue, edged
by a band of alternate squares of blue and yellow; their helmets are
yellow, but the faces appear to be merely outlined in white on the olive
green ground.
9. The lower part of an Assyrian warrior, his armour and greaves blue,
yellow, and white. The naked hand is of a pale brown color. Ground olive
green.
10. A castle, with angular battlements; white, with yellow bands on a blue
ground. A square door is painted blue.
All these fragments evidently belong to the same period, and probably to
the same general subject. I should conjecture that they had been taken
from the same building as the detached bas-reliefs in the south-west
palace, and that consequently they may be attributed to the same king.[69]
The outlines are spirited, in character and treatment resembling the
sculptures.
A fragment of painted brick, found in the ruins of the north-west palace,
is undoubtedly of a different, and of an earlier, period. The outline is
in black, and not in white. The upper robe is blue, the under yellow, and
the fringes white. The ground is yellow.
But the most perfect and interesting specimen of painting is that on a
brick, 12 inches by 9, discovered in the centre of the mound of Nimroud,
and now in the British Museum. It represents the king followed by his
attendant eunuch, receiving his general or vizir, a group very similar to
those seen in the sculptures from the north-west palace. Above his head is
a kind of fringed pavilion and part of an inscription, which appears to
have contained his name; beneath him is the Assyrian guilloche border. The
outline is in black upon a pale yellow ground, the colors having probably
faded. From the costume of the king I believe him to be either the builder
of the north-west or centre palace. This is an unique specimen of an
entire Assyrian painting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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