the loose ends, and a girdle as encircling the vital parts would not unnaturally symbolize life, and in picture-language come to signify it. The two seated figures have one hand raised in token of adoration before the sacred emblems in the middle, while in their other hands they firmly grasp a sceptre. Below we have seven more fragmentary specimens of ivory-work, all of which were discovered amid the ruins of the same palace and betray a strong foreign influence. The deductions which these little ivory carvings justify our making in regard to the foreign affairs of Assyria at this period, are rendered certainties by the evidence afforded by the bronze bowls dealt with in the chapter on Metallurgy. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXII_ _Photo. Mansell_ _British Museum_ CARVED IVORY PANELS, FROM NIMRÛD] It must not however be supposed that all the ivories discovered in Assyria are the work of Egyptian or Phœnician artists. Some, of which a good specimen is seen in Fig. 84, are as Assyrian in style and conception as any palace bas-relief. The ivory panel here reproduced is just five inches high. The subject is a familiar one—a four-winged mythological being crowned with a horned cap, with the right hand extended in the performance of some religious ceremony, and carrying a basket in the left hand. Not only is the motif entirely Assyrian in character, but the workmanship and manner of execution bears the unmistakable hall-mark of Assyria. The aggressive masculinity of the arms and legs, the folds, arrangement and style of the garments as well as the hair and strongly depicted beard, are all exactly paralleled in the figures so often seen on the stone sculptures of the period. On either side of the panel in which this mythological creature is enshrined there is a scroll-work device which was employed in Babylonia as early at all events as the time of Entemena of Lagash, while his feet stand upon a line of the rosettes which appear so frequently as a decorative accessory in Assyrian works of art. The lower part of this panel is filled in with circular and volute-shaped devices, and at the bottom of all we have another line of rosettes. Among the various subjects carved on the other ivory panels emanating from the ruins of the same palace the following may be mentioned as of especial interest: a hero slaying a lion, some Assyrians gathering fruit, and Ashur-naṣir-pal accompanied by deities and attendants. These ivory panels from Nimrûd were as we have seen, in many cases inlaid[139] with lapis lazuli and gilded, and they were probably used to decorate and embellish thrones, or other stately articles of furniture, and in this connection we not unnaturally think of the great throne which Solomon built for himself, which is said to have been made of ivory and overlaid with the best gold (cf. 1 Kings x. 18) as also of the ivory palace erected by Ahab. CHAPTER XI—TERRA-COTTA FIGURES AND RELIEFS