of Nimrud
vessels is Phoenician, and that they were either carried off as spoil
from Tyre and other Phoenician towns, or else were the workmanship of
Phoenician captives removed into Assyria from their own country. The
Sidonians and their kindred were, it is remarked, the most renowned
workers in metal of the ancient world, and their intermediate position
between Egypt and Assyria may, it is suggested, have been the cause of
the existence among them of a mixed art, half Assyrian, half Egyptian.
The theory is plausible; but upon the whole it seems mere consonant with
all the facts to regard the series in question as in reality Assyrian,
modified from the ordinary style by an influence derived from Egypt.
Either Egyptian artificers--captives probably--may have wrought the
bowls after Assyrian models, and have accidentally varied the common
forms, more or less, in the direction which was natural to them from old
habits; or Assyrian artificers, acquainted with the art of Egypt, and
anxious to improve their own from it, may have consciously adopted
certain details from the rival country. The workmanship, subjects, and
mode of treatment, are all, it is granted, "more Assyrian than
Egyptian," the Assyrian character being decidedly more marked than in
the case of the ivories which will be presently considered; yet even in
that case the legitimate conclusions seems to be that the specimens are
to be regarded as native Assyrian, but as produced abnormally, under a
strong foreign influence.

The usual material of the Assyrian ornamental metallurgy is bronze,
composed of one part of tin to ten of copper which are exactly the
proportions considered to be best by the Greeks and Romans, and still in
ordinary use at the present day. In some instances, where more than
common strength was required, as in the legs of tripods and tables, the
bronze was ingeniously cast over an inner structure of iron. This
practice was unknown to modern metallurgists until the discovery of the
Assyrian specimens, from which it has been successfully imitated.

We may presume that, besides bronze, the Assyrians used, to a certain
extent, silver and gold as materials for ornamental metal-work. The
earrings, bracelets, and armlets worn by the kings and the great
officers of state were probably of the more valuable metal, while the
similar ornaments worn by those of minor may have been of silver. [PLATE
LXXVI., Fig. 3.] One solitary specimen only of either cl