The five great monarchies of the ancient eastern world; or, The history, geography, and antiquites of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, and Persia . k, and now in theNational Collection. Here the upper corners exhibitthe favourite gradines, guarding and keeping in placean embroidered cushion; the legs are ornamentedwith rosettes and with horizontal mouldings; theyare connected together by two bars, the lower oneadorned with a number of double volutes, and theupper one with two lions standing back to back; thestool stands on balls, surmounted first by a doublemoulding, and then by volutes. Sta


The five great monarchies of the ancient eastern world; or, The history, geography, and antiquites of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, and Persia . k, and now in theNational Collection. Here the upper corners exhibitthe favourite gradines, guarding and keeping in placean embroidered cushion; the legs are ornamentedwith rosettes and with horizontal mouldings; theyare connected together by two bars, the lower oneadorned with a number of double volutes, and theupper one with two lions standing back to back; thestool stands on balls, surmounted first by a doublemoulding, and then by volutes. Stands with shelves often terminate, like otherarticles of furniture, in ani-mals feet, most commonlylions, as in the accompany-ing specimens. Of the embroidered robesand draperies of the Assy-rians, as of their furniture,we can judge only by therepresentations made of themupon the bas-reliefs. Thedelicate texture of such fabrics has prevented themfrom descending to our day even in the most tatteredcondition ; and the ancient testimonies on the sub-ject are for the most part too remote from the timesof the Assyrians to be of much value.^ Ezekiels. stands for jars. 2 ^\q Greek and Roman ideas on j Semiramis, garments of great magni-thesubjectofthe Assyrian dress were [ ficence and of delicate fabric. (tSeeprobably derived Irom Ctcsias, at i Diod. Sic. ii. 6, § 6, 23, § 1, and 27,least mainly. He seems to have I § 3.) But lie did not, so far as weascribed to tSardanapalus, and even to i know, distinctly speak of these gar- Chap. VI. ASSYRIAN DRAPERIES. 491 notice ^ fs the only one which comes within such aperiod of Assyrias fall as to make it an importanttestimony, and even from this we cannot gather muchthat goes beyond the evidence of the sculptures show us that robes and draperies ofall kinds were almost always more or less patterned;and this patterning, which is generally of an ex-tremely elaborate kind, it is reasonable to concludewas the work of the needle. S


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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, books, booksubjecthistoryancient