covered by the painter with the liveliest colours. This sumptuous
decoration, covering every external and internal surface, may no more be
detached from it than the skin of an animal may be detached from its
muscles. The union is even more intimate in this case, the adherence more
complete. So long as the Egyptian walls remain standing, the blocks of
limestone, sandstone, or granite of which they are composed, can never be
entirely freed from the images, that is, from the expression of the
thoughts, cut upon them by the men of forty centuries ago.

In Assyria the case was different. There buildings were of brick, each unit
being in the vast majority of cases a repetition of its neighbour. In very
few instances were the bricks of special shapes, and the buildings in which
they were used could only be decorated by attached ornament, similar in
principle to the mats and hangings we spread over the floors and walls that
we wish to hide. This result they obtained in one of two ways; they either
cased their walls in stone, an expensive and laborious process, or they
covered them with a decoration of many colours.

As soon as stone came into use, it must have offered an irresistible
temptation to the chisel of the sculptor and the ornamentist; and so we
nearly always find it decorated with carvings. Sometimes, as in the lintel
and thresholds described above (Figs. 95 and 96), the motives are purely
ornamental. Elsewhere, in the gates of the Assyrian palaces, and in the
plinths of the walls that surround their courts and halls, we find both
figures in the round and in low relief. In a future chapter we shall
attempt to define the style of these works and to determine their merit.
For the present we must be content with pointing out the part played by
sculpture in the general system of decoration.

In Chaldaea sculpture must have played a very feeble part in the _ensemble_
of a building, stone was too costly in consequence of the distance it had
to be carried. From the ruins of Chaldaea no colossi, like those which
flanked the entrances of the Ninevite palaces, none of those long
inscriptions upon alabaster slabs which have been of such value for the
student of Assyrian history, have been brought. This latter material and
all the facilities it offered to the sculptor was apparently entirely
neglected by the Chaldaeans. In Lower Mesopotamia the hard volcanic rocks
were chiefly used. They were preferred, no doubt, for their durab