enicia
and occupied Egypt.[394] In the more ancient bas-reliefs flowers with a
very different aspect--copied in all probability directly from nature--are
alone to be found. Of these some idea may be formed from the adjoining cut.
It reproduces a bouquet held in the hand of a winged genius in the palace
of Assurnazirpal (Fig. 133).

[Illustration: FIG. 132.--Rosette.]

The lotus flower is to be found moreover in monuments much older than those
of the Sargonids, but that does not in any way disprove the hypothesis of
a direct plagiarism. The commercial relations between the valleys of the
Nile and the Euphrates date from a much more remote epoch, and about the
commencement of the eighteenth dynasty the Egyptians seem to have occupied
in force the basin of the Khabour, the principal affluent of the Euphrates.
Layard found many traces of their passage over and sojourn in that
district, among them a series of scarabs, many of which bore the
superscription of Thothmes III.[395] So that the points of contact were
numerous enough, and the mutual intercourse sufficiently intimate and
prolonged, to account for the assimilation by Mesopotamian artists of a
motive taken from the flora of Egypt and to be seen on almost every object
imported from the Nile valley. This imitation appears all the more probable
as in the paintings of Theban tombs dating from a much more remote period
than the oldest Ninevite remains, the pattern with its alternate bud and
flower is complete. Many examples may be found in the plates of Prisse
d'Avennes' great work;[396] one is reproduced in our Fig. 134.

[Illustration: FIG. 133.--Bouquet of flowers and buds; from Layard.]

[Illustration: FIG. 134.--Painted border; from Thebes, after Prisse.]

The Assyrians borrowed their motive from Egypt, but they gave it more than
Egyptian perfection. They gave it the definitive shapes that even Greece
did not disdain to copy. In the Egyptian frieze the cones and flowers are
disjointed; their isolation is unsatisfactory both to the eye and the
reason. In the Assyrian pattern they are attached to a continuous
undulating stem whose sinuous lines add greatly to the elegance of the
composition. The distinctive characters of the bud and flower are also very
well marked by the Assyrian artists. The closed petals of the one the open
ones of the other and the divisions of the calix are indicated in a
fashion that happily combines truth with convention. In our Fig. 135 we
r