en doors of 55 cubits altitude,
and 16 in breadth: but before these doors there was a
veil of equal largeness with the doors. It was a
Babylonian curtain of blue, fine linen, and scarlet and
purple; of an admixture that was truly wonderful. Nor
was the mixture without its mystical interpretation; but
was a kind of image of the universe. For by the scarlet
was to be enigmatically signified fire; by the fine
flax, the earth; by the blue, the air, and by the
purple, the sea;--two of them having their colours for
the foundation of this resemblance; but the fine flax
and the purple have their own origin for this
foundation, the earth producing the one, and the sea the
other. This curtain had also embroidered upon it all
that was mystical in the heavens excepting the twelve
signs of the zodiac, representing living creatures."
Josephus (Trans. by Whiston), p. 895.

[32] See also M. E. Harkness and Stuart Poole, "Assyrian
Life and History," p. 66.

[33] The visions of Ezekiel and St. John remind us of
the composite figures and animals in Ninevite
sculptures, and the prophetic poetry helps us to
interpret their symbolism.

[34] G. Smith's "Ancient History of the Monuments,"
Babylonia, p. 33. Edited by Sayce.

[35] In the British Museum. See "Bronze Ornaments of
Palace Gates, Balawat," pl. E 5.

[36] See Auberville's "Ornement des Tissus," pl. 1.

[37] The Egyptian queen in question was mother-in-law to
Shishak, whose daughter married Solomon. After his
son-in-law's death, Shishak plundered the "King's
House," and carried to Egypt the golden shields or
panels (1 Kings xiv. 26). The golden vessels went to
Babylon later, and the golden candlesticks to Rome.

[38] Sir G. Birdwood repeatedly points out that the
Vedic was the art that worshipped and served nature. The
Puranic is the ideal and distorted. The Moguls, about
700 B.C., introduced their ugly Dravidian art. Through
the Sassanian art of Persia, that of India was
influenced. Possibly the very forms which in India are
copied from Assyrian temples and palaces, may have
travelled first to Assyria upon Indian stuffs and
jewellery (Sir G. Birdwood's "Industrial Arts of India,"
i. p. 236).

[39] Ibid., p. 130 (ed. 1884).

[40] Nearchus (Strabo, XV. i. 67) says that the people
of India