The five great monarchies of the ancient eastern world; or, The history, geography, and antiquites of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, and Persia . Arm-chair or throne (Khorsab;id). figures, apparently representations of the king, below which was the war-horse of the monarch,caparisoned as for bat-tle.^ Another throneof the same monarchshad two large and foursmall figures of menat the side, while theback was supported oneither side by a humanfigure of superior di-mensions.® The use ofchairs with high backs,like these, was appa-rently confined to the monarchs. Persons of less exalted rank wer
The five great monarchies of the ancient eastern world; or, The history, geography, and antiquites of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, and Persia . Arm-chair or throne (Khorsab;id). figures, apparently representations of the king, below which was the war-horse of the monarch,caparisoned as for bat-tle.^ Another throneof the same monarchshad two large and foursmall figures of menat the side, while theback was supported oneither side by a humanfigure of superior di-mensions.® The use ofchairs with high backs,like these, was appa-rently confined to the monarchs. Persons of less exalted rank were content to sit on seats whichwere either stools, orchairs, with a low back .« _ ^ level with the arms. Seats of this kind,whether thrones orchairs, were no doubtconstructed mainly ofwood. The ornamentalwork may, however,have been of bronze, Assyrian ornamented seat (]{horsabad). Cltner CaSt lUtO tllC necessary shape, orwrought into it by the hammer. The animal heads at. * Botta, Monument de Ninive, Plate 17. « Ibid, riate 18. <? In the series from which this re- i:)resentation is taken tlie figures ap-pear seated in such a way as wouldimply that the actual seat was levelwith the dotted line ab. Chap. VI. ASSYRIAN COUCHES AND FOOTSTOOLS. 489 the ends of arms seem to have fallen under the latterdescription.^ In some cases, ivory was among thematerials used : it has been found in the legs of athrone at Koyunjik,^ and may not improbably haveentered into the ornamentation of the best furniturevery much more generally. The couches which we find represented upon thesculptures are of a simple character. The body isflat, not curved; the legsare commonly plain, andfastened to each otherby a crossbar, sometimesterminating in the fa-vorite pine-shaped orna-ment. One end only israised, and this usuallycurves inward nearly in a semicircle. The couches aredecidedly lower than the Egyptian ; and do not, likethem, require a stool or steps in order to asc
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, books, booksubjecthistoryancient
