The most important of the Assyrian monuments in bronze hitherto discovered is the famous decoration of the gates of the palace of Shalmaneser III. (857-822), at Balawat. It consists of metal bands, 9 in. broad, decorated in repoussé with reliefs representing the campaigns of Shalmaneser. They were fixed horizontally, at intervals, on wooden gates, which may have been quite 7 or 8 yards high; the scenes are reproduced upon them with the same ease and the same details as on the limestone slabs: battles, landscapes, trees, rivers and mountains are to be seen; the figures, however, are treated more roughly, and the muscles are marked with less precision and delicacy. Each band (fig. 96) is divided into two compartments by a row of rosettes, imitating the heads of nails. “Taking them all in all,” says M. Perrot, “these bronze reliefs are among the works which do most honour to Assyrian art.”[46] [Illustration: Fig. 96.--Fragment of metal band of Balawat gates (British Museum).] The perfection of the work in certain Assyrian bronze vessels makes these monuments real masterpieces. Pateræ found at Nineveh, sometimes incrusted with gold and silver, present on their inner surface, in an exquisite style, concentric zones of rosettes and symmetrical festoons of figures engraved in outline or standing out in relief (fig. 97). Symbols are encountered [Illustration: Fig. 97.--Bronze dish, Nimroud (British Museum).] [Illustration: Fig. 98.--Assyrian archers. (Bas-relief in British Museum.)] [Illustration: Fig. 99.--Various forms of the Assyrian helmet.] which have evidently been borrowed from Egypt, such as the winged scarabæus and the figures of Hathor and Bes. Similar in form, in the metal of which they are composed, in the gold and silver incrustations, and even in the choice of subjects, to the Phœnician vessels from Cyprus (figs. 233 and 234), the pateræ of Nineveh are not, for the most part, of Assyrian manufacture; they were brought thither by Phœnician commerce, and were probably fashioned in the workshops of Tyre or Sidon, where the artistic traditions of Egypt and Assyria were united. The glass found among the Assyrian ruins was also probably of Phœnician manufacture, as it will be seen in the chapter on Phœnician art. Much more exclusively Assyrian are the bronze seals which the bas-reliefs show us in the hands of priests or genii. We find among them lions’ heads, flowers and elegant rosettes on the bottom, on the border, or at the point at which the handles are attached. [Illustration: Fig. 100.--Bronze lion (Louvre).] [Illustration: Fig. 101.--Bronze siren.] The equipment of an Assyrian soldier consists of a bow and arrows, a lance or javelin, a club, a sword, a dagger, a helmet, a coat of mail, and a buckler; the battering-rams which sap the walls had a metal carapace and head. Might it not be imagined that these Assyrian soldiers, wearing the conical helmet, and entirely covered, with the exception