of this inherent law of artistic progression, would of itself classify
monumental Assyria as, chronologically, a succedaneum of Egypt;
and vindicate De Longpérier’s conclusiohs of Assyrian modernness,
no less than Bawlinson’s acknowledgments of Egyptian antiquity.95
, The combined action of art and of the prevalence, in and around
Mesopotamia, of a preponderating type which approaches the beau-
ideal of Semitic humanity, may be seen by comparing the captives of
Assyrian triumphs wdth the common soldiery of Ninevite armies.
Thus, this Syrian (Pig. 20), with his leathern scull-cap, whom a pass-
Fia. 21.
Fis. 20.
S y r ia n C a p tiv e .96 A s s y r ia n ' S o ld i e r s .97
age in Herodotus identifies with the people “Milyse,” 98 or else of adjacent
Cilicia, could not otherwise he distinguished from common
Assyrian spearmen (Pig. 21) attacking a stronghold which, if not in
Samaria, belongs to the same mountainous region. Both drawings
are from Khorsabad, and the expeditions of Sargan, late in the eighth
century B. c.
But it is in the likenesses of the patricians and of royalty wherein,
partly owing to more pains-taking treatment by artists, and partly to a
higher caste of race, that the pure Assyrian type becomes vigorously
“ scolpito.”
S a r g a n ’s minister, (Pig. 22) probably his Vizeer, displays the same
noble blood as the King (Pig. 23) himself."
Above all the portraits of Hinevite sovereigns discovered, that of
S a r g a n is the most interesting; 1st, because it was the first royal
likeness unearthed from Khorsabad by B otta ;100 2ndly, because it
was the first whose cuneatie legends were ascribed to the besieger of
Ashdod by a most felicitous guess of L ow en st er n ;101 and 3dly, because
it was the first identified of those sublime sculptures that,
rescued from perdition by French munificence, arrived in Europe,
P H Y S IC A L H I S T O R Y OF T S E J E W S . 1 2 9
F ig . 23.
F ig. 22.
The "Vizeer. ^ he ESnra.
and once again tower majestically in the Louvre Museum,10 after
some 2515 years of oblivion.
We present a rough tracing (Pig. 24) of B otta’s earliest lithographs,
wherein the Lead-dress is tinted red, like
the original bas-relief.
It was established, twenty years ago,
by R o se l l in i , that, in Egyptian art, the
andro-sphinxes (human head on lion’s
body, symbolical of royalty,) always bear
the likenesses of the kings or queens in
whose reign they were chiselled. Thus,
were the features of the Great Sphinx at
the pyramids of Memphis adequately
preserved, we should probably behold
the lost portrait of AAHMES, founder
of the A V 11th dynasty, in the seventeenth
century b . c. ; to whom, under
the Greek form of Amasis, a tradition in sargan, (Isaiah, xx. l).
P l in y ’s time still attributed this colossus.103 b . C. 710 to 668.
The symbol “ sphinx,” by the Greeks
17