nd at Saccarah,[28] in
Egypt, woven in precisely the same tapestry fashion?

Among the puzzling phenomena due probably to Phoenician commerce, is
the complete suite of the sacerdotal ornaments of a High Priest, found
in his tomb,[29] now in the Vatican Museum. This reminds us of other
specimens of archaic art from distant sources, that our attention is
forcibly arrested, and we wonder whence they came, and whether they
were collected from alien civilizations by the Phoenicians before
they dispersed them.[30]

Certain Egyptian sculptures of deformed and repulsive
divinities--idols of the baser sort--are most interesting and puzzling
by their affinity in style to the Indo-Dravidian and the art of
Mexico, while they are entirely unlike that of Egypt. If Atlantis and
its arts never existed, it may be suggested that it was the eastern
coast of America that was spoken of under that name by the Egyptian
priest with whom Herodotus conversed.

The Babylonian and Ninevite embroideries, carefully executed on their
bas-reliefs, have a masculine look, which suggests the design of an
artist and the work of slaves. There is no following out of graceful
fancies; one set of selected forms (each probably with a symbolical
intention) following another. The effect, as seen on the sculptures in
the British Museum, is royally gorgeous; and one feels that creatures
inferior to monarchs or satraps could never have aspired to such
splendours. Probably the embroidery on their corselets was executed in
gold wire, treated as thread, and taken through the material; and the
same system was carried out in adorning the trappings of the horses
and the chariots. The solid masses of embroidery may have been
afterwards subjected to the action of the hammer, which would account
for their appearing like jeweller's work in the bas-reliefs (Pl. 1 and
2).

[Illustration: Pl. 1.
Assurbanipal fighting lions.
British Museum.]

[Illustration: Pl. 2.
Portion of a Babylonian Royal Mantle. Layard's "Monuments," series
i., pl. 9.]

The style of the Babylonian embroideries appears to have been
naturalistic though conventionalized. We may judge of their styles for
different purposes by the reliefs in the British Museum. From their
veils and curtains at a later date, when they had crossed their
art with that of India, we may imagine the mystical design of the
Temple curtain as described by Josephus; in fact, as much as possible
embracin