Another bronze object not less strange, is a species of altar, or rather a sacrificial table. This also is made in one single casting, 5 ft. 3 in. long, 27½ in. broad, and 12 in. deep. It is pierced like a stone sink, to allow liquids to escape, and round the sides it is decorated with two enormous serpents. There are also five human busts, Atlas-like figures, who support the altar on their powerful shoulders. Unfortunately, this colossal object has been mutilated with unusual fury; it bears many traces of blows from a mallet, and all the protruding parts have suffered. The five Atlas heads have been broken off and have disappeared. The victorious pillagers, it appears, only stopped their vengeance when their strength was exhausted, and when the enormous metal slab, reduced to a shapeless block without projections, resisted all their efforts. A large number of other objects found by M. de Morgan, both in stone and bronze, bear alas! similar traces of the merciless and brutal hatred displayed by the various races which disputed the domination of Elam. In consequence of this treatment, it is impossible to judge the sacrificial table from the artistic side. For this point of view we must turn to a bronze bas-relief, dated in the reign of Shutruk-Nakhunta, which may be considered the earliest artistic monument, well-preserved in the essential portions, which is also actually Elamite (fig. 250). This bas-relief is damaged at the sides, and pieces have been violently broken off, but a fragment still remains, 3 ft. 3 in. in length, and about 2 ft. in height. The most deeply cut reliefs project about half an inch. “It consists,” says M. de Morgan, “of three superposed registers; the upper one is almost completely destroyed, and only enough remains to enable us to discover the subject depicted on it: these are figures of human beings and of animals. The middle register is rather more than 16 in. in height, and on it are seven figures 14 in. high, walking towards the right. The lower register was greatly neglected and merely contains drawings of birds and trees, worked with the burin.... [Illustration: Fig. 250.--Bronze bas-relief fragment (Louvre).]