The five great monarchies of the ancient eastern world; or, The history, geography, and antiquites of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, and Persia . as, for instance, the man seizing a wild bull bythe horn and fore-leg, which is figured page 431. Ingeneral, however, there is a tendency in these earlydrawings to the grotesque. Lions and bulls appear in absurd attitudes; hawk-headed figures in petti-coats threaten human-headed lions with a maceor a strap, sometimesholding them by a paw,sometimes grasping themround the middle of thetail; priests hold up ibexesat arms length by one ofDeath of a w
The five great monarchies of the ancient eastern world; or, The history, geography, and antiquites of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, and Persia . as, for instance, the man seizing a wild bull bythe horn and fore-leg, which is figured page 431. Ingeneral, however, there is a tendency in these earlydrawings to the grotesque. Lions and bulls appear in absurd attitudes; hawk-headed figures in petti-coats threaten human-headed lions with a maceor a strap, sometimesholding them by a paw,sometimes grasping themround the middle of thetail; priests hold up ibexesat arms length by one ofDeath of a wild bull (Nimrud). their Imid-legs, SO that their heads trail upon theground ; griffins claw after antelopes, or antelopes toywith winged lions ; even in the hunting scenes, which are less simply lu-dicrous, there seemsto be an occasionalstriving after strangeand laughable atti-tudes, as when astricken bull tumblesupon his head, withhis tail tossed straightin the air, or whena lion receives hisdeath - wound witharms outsjDread, andmouth widely King killing .1 lion (Nimrud). The second period of Assyrian mimetic art extendsfrom the latter part of the eighth to nearly the middle Chap, VI. BAS-RELIEFS OF THE SECOND PERIOD. 433 of the seventh century before our era; or, moreexactly, from about 721, to 667. It belongsto the reigns of the three consecutive kings—Sargon,Sennacherib, and Esar-haddon, who were contem-porary with Hezekiah and Manasseh in Judsea, andwith the Sabacos (Shebeks) and Tirhakah (Tehrak)in Egypt. The sources which chiefly illustrate thisperiod are the magnificent series of engravings pub-lished by MM. Flandin and Botta,^ together with theoriginals of a certain portion of them in the Louvre ;the engravings in Mr. Layards first folio work, frompi. 68 to pi. 83; those in his second folio work frompi. 7 to pi. 56 ; the originals of many of these in theBritish Museum; several monuments procured forthe British Museum by Mr. Loftus; and a series ofu
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