old plates upon the plateau
that formed the summit of the building, and with them the gilded nails with
which they had been fixed.[383] In his life of _Apollonius of Tyana_,
Philostratus gives a description of Babylon that appears taken from
authentic sources, and he notices this employment of metal. "The palaces of
the King of Babylon are covered with bronze which makes them glitter at a
distance; the chambers of the women, the chambers of the men and the
porticoes are decorated with silver, with beaten and even with massive gold
instead of pictures."[384] Herodotus speaks of the silvered and gilded
battlements of Ecbatana[385] and at Khorsabad cedar masts incased in gilded
bronze were found,[386] while traces of gold have been found on some crude
bricks at Nimroud.[387] Seeing that metal was thus used to cover wide
surfaces, and that, as we shall have occasion to show, the forms of
sculpture, of furniture, and of the arts allied to them in Mesopotamia,
prove that the inhabitants of that region were singularly skilled in the
manipulation of metal, whether with the chisel or the hammer, the above
conjecture may very well be true; the sheen of the polished surface would
be in excellent harmony with the enamelled faience about it.

It has been suggested that some of the carved ivories may have been used
to ornament the coffers. This suggestion in itself seems specious enough,
but I failed to discover a single ivory in the rich collection of the
British Museum whose shape would have fitted the openings in the
tiles.[388] It is certain, however, that ivory was used in the
ornamentation of buildings. "I incrusted," says Nebuchadnezzar, "the
door-posts, the lintel, and threshold of the place of repose with ivory."
The small rectangular plaques with which several cases and many drawers are
filled in the British Museum may very well have been used for the
decoration of doors, and the panels of ceilings and wainscots. They were so
numerous, especially in the palace of Assurnazirpal at Nimroud, that we
cannot believe them all to have come off small and movable pieces of
furniture. We are confirmed in this idea by the fact that none of these
ivories are unique or isolated works of art. In spite of the care and taste
expended on their execution they were in no sense gems treasured for their
rarity and value; they were the products of an active manufactory
delivering its types in series, we might almost say in dozens. The more
elegan