s, like the royal bracelets, they bore in their
centre a rosette. Sandals, or in the later times shoes, completed the
ordinary costume of the Assyrian "gentleman."

Sometimes both the girdle round the waist, and the cross-belt, which was
often worn without a sword, were deeply fringed, the two fringes falling
one over the other, and covering the whole body from the chest to the
knee. Sometimes, but more rarely, the long robe was discarded, and the
Assyrian of some rank wore the short tunic, which was then, however,
always fringed, and commonly ornamented with a phillibeg.

Certain peculiar head-dresses and peculiar modes of arranging the hair
deserve special attention from their singularity. [PLATE CXXXV., Fig.
4.] They belong in general to musicians, priests, and other official
personages, and may perhaps have been badges of office. For instance,
musicians sometimes wear on their heads a tall stiff cap shaped like a
fish's tail; at other times their head-dress is a sort of tiara of
feathers.

Their hair is generally arranged in the ordinary Assyrian fashion; but
sometimes it is worn comparatively short, and terminates in a double row
of crisp curls. Priests have head-dresses shaped like truncated cones. A
cook in one instance, wears a cap not unlike the tiara of the monarch,
except that it is plain, and is not surmounted by an apex or peak. A
harper has the head covered with a close-fitting cap, encircled with a
row of large beads or pearl; from which a lappet depends behind,
similarly ornamented. A colossal figure in a doorway, apparently a man,
though possibly representing a god, has the hair arranged in six
monstrous curls, the lowest three resting upon the shoulder. [PLATE
CXXXV., Fig. 6.]

Women of the better sort seem to have been dressed in sleeved gowns,
less scanty than those of the men, and either striped or else patterned
and fringed. Outside this they sometimes wore a short cloak of the same
pattern as the gown, open in front and falling over the arms, which it
covered nearly to the elbows. Their hair was either arranged over the
whole of the head in short crisp curls, or carried back in waves to the
ears, and then in part twisted into long pendent ringlets, in part
curled, like that of the men, in three or four rows at the back of the
neck. [PLATE CXXXV., Fig. 5.] A girdle was probably worn round the
waist, such as we see in the representations of goddesses, while a
fringed cross-belt passed diagonally