d a great importance.

The monument in question is a tablet of very close-grained grey stone
11-1/3 inches long 6 inches high and, in the centre, about 3 inches thick.
Its thickness increases from top to bottom. The edge is grooved. High up
on the obverse there is a bas-relief, beneath this commences a long
inscription which is finished on the reverse.[253] Shorter inscriptions are
engraved on the field of the relief itself. The whole work--figures,
inscriptions, and outer mouldings--is executed with the utmost care. The
laborious solicitude with which the smallest details are carried out is to
be explained by the destination of this little plaque, namely, the temple
in the centre of Sippara in which a triad consisting of Sin, Samas, and
Istar was the object of worship.[254]

The relief itself--which we reproduce from a cast kindly presented to us by
Dr. Birch--occupies rather less than half of the obverse (Fig. 71). It
represents a king called Nabou-Abla-Idin, who reigned about 900, doing
homage to the sun-god.[255] We shall return to this scene and its
composition when the time arrives for treating Chaldaean sculpture. At
present we only wish to speak of the pavilion under which the deity is
enthroned upon a chair supported by two beings half man and half bull.

This kind of tabernacle is bounded, above and at the back of the god, by a
wall of which there is nothing to show the exact nature. Its graceful,
sinuous line, however, seems to exclude the idea, sufficiently improbable
in itself, of a brick vault. It may possibly have been of wood, though it
would not be easy to obtain this elegant curve even in that material.

But such forms as this are given with the greatest ease in metal, and we
are ready to believe that what the artist here meant to represent was a
metal frame, which could at need be hidden under a canopy of leather or
wool, like those we have already encountered in the Assyrian bas-reliefs
(Figs. 67 and 68). The artist has in fact made use of a graphic process
common enough with the Egyptians.[256] He has given us a lateral elevation
of the tabernacle with the god in profile within it, because his skill was
unequal to the task of showing him full front and seated between the two
columns of the facade.

The single column thus left visible has been represented with great skill
and care; the sculptor seems to have taken pleasure in dwelling upon its
smallest details. Slender as it is, it must have been