decorations in which there were figures nearly six feet high.[360] We may
form some idea of this frieze of animals from one in the palace of Sargon
at the foot of the wall on each side of the harem doorway (plate xv.).[361]
As for the hunting incidents, we may imagine what they were like from the
Assyrian sculptures (Fig. 5).

At Babylon as at Nineveh the palette of the enameller was very restricted.
Figures were as a rule yellow and white relieved against a blue ground.
Touches of black were used to give accent to certain details, such as the
hair and beard, or to define a contour. The surface of the brick was not
always left smooth; in some cases it shows hollow lines in which certain
colours were placed when required to mark distinctive or complementary
features. As a rule motives were modelled in relief upon the ground, so
that they were distinguished by a gentle salience as well as by colour, a
contrivance that increased their solidity and effect.[362] This may be
observed on the Babylonian bricks brought to Europe by M. Delaporte,
consul-general for France at Bagdad. They are now in the Louvre. On one we
see the three white petals belonging to one of those Marguerite-shaped
flowers that artists have used in such profusion in painted and sculptured
decoration (Figs. 22, 25, 96, 116, 117). Another is the fragment of a wing,
and must have entered into the composition of one of those winged genii
that are hardly less numerous in Assyrian decoration (Figs. 4, 8, and 29).
Upon a third you may recognize the trunk of a palm-tree and on a fourth the
sinuous lines that edge a drapery.[363] M. de Longperier calculated from
the dimensions of this latter fragment that the figure to which it belonged
must have been four cubits high, exactly the height assigned by Ctesias to
the figures in the groups seen by him when he visited the palace of the
ancient kings.[364]

M. Oppert also mentions fragments which had formed part of similar
important compositions. Yellow scales separated from one another by black
lines, reminded him of the conventional figure under which the Assyrians
represented hills or mountains; on others he found fragments of trees, on
others blue undulations, significant, no doubt, of water; on others, again,
parts of animals--the foot of a horse, the mane and tail of a lion. A
thick, black line upon a blue ground may have stood for the lance of a
hunter. Upon one fragment a human eye, looking full to the front, m