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ASSYRIAN AND PERSIAN O1RNAMENT.
The colours in use by the Assyrians appear to have been blue, red, white,
and black, on their
painted ornaments; blue, red, and gold, on their sculptured ornaments; and
green, orange, buff, white,
and black, on their enamelled bricks.
The ornaments of Persepolis, represented on Plate XIV., appear to be modifications
of Roman
details. Nos. 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, are from bases of fluted columns, which evidently
betray a Roman influ-
ence.  The ornaments from  Tak I Bostan,-17, 20, 21, 23, 24,-are all constructed
on the same
principle as Roman ornament, presenting only a similar modification of the
modelled surface, such as
we find in Byzantine ornament, and which they resemble in a most remarkable
manner.
The ornaments, 12 and 16, from Sassanian capitals, Byzantine in their general
outline, at Bi
Sutoun, contain the germs of all the ornamentation of the Arabs and Moors.
It is the earliest example
we meet with of lozenge-shaped diapers.  The Egyptians and the Assyrians
appear to have covered
large spaces with patterns formed by geometrical arrangement of lines; but
this is the first instance
of the repetition of curved lines forming a general pattern enclosing a secondary
form. By the prin-
ciple contained in No. 16 would be generated all those exquisite forms of
diaper which covered the
domes of the mosques of Cairo and the walls of the Alhambra.
Sassanian Capital from Bi Sutomu.-FLANDIN & COSTE.
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