The art of the Nineveh monuments must in the pres- ent state of our knowledge be accepted as an original and national art, peculiar, if not to the Assyrians alone, to the races who at various periods possessed the coun- try watered by the Tigris and Euphrates. As it was undoubtedly brought to its highest perfection by the Assyrians, and is especially characteristic of them, it may well aiid conveniently bear their name. From whence it was originally derived there is nothing as yet to show. If from Babylon, as some have conject- ured, there are no remains to prove the fact. Analogies may perhaps be found between it and that of Egj'pt, but they are not sufficient to convince us that the one was the offspring of the other. These analogies, if not accidental, may have been derived, at some very re- mote period, from a common source. The two may have been offshoots from some common trunk which perished ages before either Nineveh or Thebes was founded; or the Phoenicians, it has been suggested, may have introduced into the two countries, between which they were placed, and between which they may have formed a commercial link, the arts peculiar to each of them. Whatever the origin, the development of the arts of the two countries appears to have been affected and directed by very opposite conditions of national character, climate, geographical and geological position, politics, and religion. Thus, Egyptian archi- tecture seems to have been derived from a stone proto- type, Assyrian from a wooden one, in accordance with the phj'sical nature of the two countries. Assyrian art is the type of power, vigor, and action ; Egyptian that of calm dignity and repose. The one is the expression of an ambitious, conquering, and restless nature; the other of a race which seems to have worked for itself alone and for eternity. In a late period of Assyrian history, at the lime (tf the building of the Khorsabad palace (about the 8th century B.C.), a more intimate intercourse with Egj'pt through war or dynastic alli- ances than had previously existed appears to have led to the introduction of objects of Egyptian manufacture into Assyria, and may have influenced to a limited ex- tent its arts. A precisely similar influence proceeding from Assyria has been remarked at the same period in Egypt, iirobably arising from the conquest and tempo- rary occupation of th2 latter country by the Assyrians, under a king whose name is read Asshur-bani-pal, men- tioned in the cuneiform inscriptions (Birch, Trans, of It. Sac. of Lit., new series). To this age belong the ivories, bronzes, and nearly all the small objects of an
Egyptian character, though not apparently of Egyptian workmanship, discovered in tlie Assyrian ruins. It has been asserted, on the authority of an inscription be- lieved to contain the names of certain Hellenic artists from Idalium,Citium, Salamis, Paphos, and other (ireek cities, that Greeks were employed by Esarhaddon and his son in executing the sculptured decorations of their palaces (Rawlinson, Herod, i, 483). But, passing over the extreme uncertainty attaching to the decipherment of proper names in the cuneiform character, it must be observed that no remains whatever of Greek art of so early a period are known, which can be compared in knowledge of principles and in beauty of execution and of design with the sculptures of Assyria. Niebuhr has remarked of Hellenic art, that "anything produced be- fore the Persian war was altogether barbarous" (34th Lecture on Ancient History'). If Greek artists could execute such monuments in Assyria, why, it may be asked, did they not display equal skill in their own country? The influence, indeed, seems to have been entirely in the opposite direction. The discoveries at Nineveh show almost beyond a doubt that the Ionic element in Greek art was derived from Assyria, as the Doric came from Egypt. There is scarcely a leading form or a detail in the Ionic order which cannot be traced to Assyria — the volute of the column, the frieze of griffins, the honeysuckle-border, the guilloche, the Caryatides, and many other ornaments peculiar to the style.
The arts of the Assyrians, especially their architect- ure, spread to surrounding nations, as is usually the case when one race is brought into contact with an- other in a lower state of civilization. They appear to have crossed the Euphrates, and to have had more or less influence on the countries between it and the Jledi- terranean. jMonuments of an Assyrian character have been discovered in certain parts of Syria, and further researches would probably disclose many more. The arts of the Phoenicians, judging from the few specimens preserved, show the same influence. In the absence of even the most insignificant remains, and of a.\\y imple- ments which may with confidence be attributed to the Jews, there are no materials for comparison between Jewish and Assyrian art. It is possible that the bronzes and ivories discovered at Nineveh were of Phoenician manufacture, like the vessels in Solomon's temple. On the lion-weights, now in the British Museum, are in- scriptions both in the cuneiform and Phoenician char- acters. The Assyrian inscriptions seem to indicate a direct dependence of Juda;a upon Assyria from a very earlj- period. From the descriptions of the temple and " houses" of Solomon (comp. 1 Kings vi, vii ; 2 Chron. iii, iv; Joseph, viii, 2; Fergusson's Palaces of Nineveh ; and Layard, Nin. and Bah. p. 642), it would appear that there was much similarity between them and the pal- aces of Nineveh, if not in the exterior architecture, certainly in the interior decorations, such as the walls panelled or wainscoted with sawn stones, the sculptures on the slabs representing trees and plants, the remain- der of the walls above the skirting painted with various colors and pictures, the figures of the winged cherubim carved "all the house round," and especially on the doorways, the ornaments of open flowers, pomegranates, and lilies (apparent^ corresponding exactly with the rosettes, pomegranates, and honeysuckle ornaments of the Assyrian bass-reliefs [Botta, Mon. de Aln., and Lay- ard, 3lon. of Nin.]), and the ceiling, roof, and beams of cedar-wood. The Jewish edifices were, however, very much inferior in size to the Assyrian. Of objects of art (if we may use the term) contained in the Temple we have the description of the pillars, of the brazen sea, and of various bronze or copper vessels. Tliey were the work of Hiram, the son of a Phoenician artist by a Jewish woman of the tribe of NaphtaH (1 Kings vii, 14), a fact which gives us some insight into Phoenician art, and seems to show that the Jews had no art of their own, as Hiram was brought from Tyre by Solomon. The