this fact, there is evidence to show that those betokening the greatest Egyptian influence did not originate in Egypt, and were probably not the work of Egyptian artists. One of these dishes for example is decorated with a circle of cartouches containing Egyptian hieroglyphs: but the hieroglyphs are placed together quite haphazard, they mean nothing, and this fact alone would suggest that the artist, whoever he was, was not an Egyptian but a plagiarist. The varying and distinct styles of art to which the decorations of these different dishes conform, are illustrated again in an equally conspicuous manner in the carved ivories, which were discovered on the same site and in the same palace. As has been already seen, engraving was not the only manner in which the Assyrians utilized metal for artistic and pictorial purposes; they also learned to excel in metal repoussé work, a process whereby the figures are beaten out in relief on the reverse, though they are sometimes finished off with a graver on the right side. The bronze gate-bands discovered by Rassam at Balâwât are by far the largest and most important monument of this branch of Assyrian metallurgy. Balâwât is situated about fifteen miles south-east of Nineveh, and on this site Rassam discovered the remains of four pairs of large folding-doors. Of two pairs of these doors the cedar-wood backing still remained, but all that remained of the other two were the bronze bands which were nailed on to the doors themselves for decorative purposes. These bands were fashioned and affixed to the wooden doors by Shalmaneser II, king of Assyria from 860 to 825 B.C. The largest of these doors was nearly twenty-two feet in height, six feet in width and three inches thick. Each of these doors was attached to a rounded post, the diameter of which was about eighteen inches, and the foot of which was covered with bronze with a view to facilitating its revolution in the stone gate-socket which was destined to hold it and the affixed door. [Illustration: FIG. 43.—Bronze gate-band from Balâwât. (British Museum.)] [Illustration: FIG. 44.—Bronze gate-band from Balâwât. (British Museum.)]