of wood. The markings
upon it suggest the trunk of a palm, but we may be permitted to doubt
whether it was allowed to remain in its natural uncovered state. Even in
the climate of Chaldaea a dead tree trunk exposed to the air would have no
great durability. Sooner or later the sun, the rain, the changes of
temperature, would give a good account of it, and besides, a piece of rough
wood could hardly be made to harmonize with the luxury that must assuredly
have been lavished by the people of Sippara upon the sanctuary of their
greatest divinity.

It is probable, therefore, that the wood was overlaid with plates of gilded
bronze, fastened on with nails.

This hypothesis is confirmed by one of M. Place's discoveries at
Khorsabad.[257] There, in front of the Harem, he found several large
fragments of a round cedar-wood beam almost as thick as a man's body. It
was cased in a bronze sheath, very much oxydized and resembling the scales
of a fish in arrangement (Fig. 72). The metal was attached to the wood by a
large number of bronze nails. Comparing these remains with certain
bas-reliefs in which different kinds of trees appear (Fig. 27) we can
easily see that the Ninevite sculptors meant to represent the peculiar
roughnesses of palm bark. Their usual methods are modified a little by the
requirements of the material and the size of the beam upon which it was
used. Each scale was about 4-1/2 inches high, and according to the
calculations of M. Place, the whole mast must have been from
five-and-thirty to forty feet high. Working for spectators on a lower level
and at some distance, the smith thought well to make his details as regular
and strongly marked as he could; to each scale or leaf he gave a raised
edge to mark its contour and distinguish it from the rest. The general
effect was thus obtained by deliberate exaggeration of the relief and by a
conventionality that was justified by the conditions of the problem to be
solved.

[Illustration: FIG. 71.--Homage to _Samas_ or _Shamas_. Tablet from
Sippara. Actual size. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]

At a little distance from this broken beam M. Place found a leaf of gold
which is now in the Louvre; it presents the same ovoid forms as the bronze
sheathing, and, moreover, the numerous nail holes show that it was meant to
fulfil the same purpose as the bronze plates. The place in which it was
found, its dimensions and form, all combine to prove that it was laid upon
the bronze as