t and finished among them are represented three, four, and five times
over in the select case in the British Museum. We may safely say that the
examples preserved of any one model are by no means all that were made; in
fact, in the drawers in which the smaller fragments are preserved, we
noticed the remains of more than one piece which had once been similar to
the more perfect specimens exhibited to the public.

Thus there are in the Museum four replicas of the little work shown in our
Fig. 129.[389] The head of a woman, full face, and with an Egyptian
head-dress, is enframed in a narrow window and looks over a balcony formed
of columns with the curious capitals already noticed on page 211. Beside
these four more or less complete examples, the Museum possesses several
detached heads (Fig. 130) which once, no doubt, belonged to similar
compositions.

[Illustration: FIG. 129.--Ivory tablet in the British Museum. Drawn by
Saint-Elme Gautier.]

The beauty of the ivory surface was often enhanced by the insertion of
coloured enamels and lapis-lazuli in the hollows of the tablet. Traces of
this inlay may be seen on many of the Museum ivories, especially on those
recently brought from Van, in Armenia. The tablets also show traces of
gilding.

[Illustration: FIG. 130.--Fragment of an ivory tablet.]

All this proves that the Mesopotamian decorator had no contemptible
resources for the ornamentation of his panelled walls and coffered
ceilings. These chiselled, enamelled, and gilded ivories must have been set
in frames of cedar or cypress. The Assyrian texts bear witness in more than
one place to the use of those fine materials, and the Hebrew writers make
frequent allusion to the luxurious carpentry imitated by their own princes
in the temple at Jerusalem.[390] In one of his invectives against Nineveh
Zephaniah cries: "Desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he shall
uncover the cedar work."[391]

The more we enter into detail the richer and more varied does the
decoration of these buildings appear. In our day the great ruins are sad
and monotonous enough. The rain of many centuries has washed away their
paint; their ornaments of metal and faience, of ivory and cedar, have
fallen from the walls; the hand of man has combined with the slow action of
time to reduce them to their elements, and nothing of their original beauty
remains but here and there a fragment or a hint of colour. And yet when we
bring these scanty vestige