'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from January 1847 to May 1849. Edited by the Secretary. Volume VIII.' [‎298] (407/496)

298
engraver commenced his labors. This varnish is composed of a hard
flinty, and very durable, substance, and, where not destroyed by the
constant trituration of rain-water finding its way down from the heights
above, is as perfect and smooth as the day it was laid on. The natural
rock, indeed, is not difficult to cut, but the prepared portion resisted a
steel chisel that we brought with us, with which we could only succeed
in chipping the surface. The great depth, and well-defined outline, of
the letters, exhibit considerable skill on the part of the engraver. They
are one and a quarter inch in length.
The sculptures comprise a group of fourteen figures, and are no
doubt intended to elucidate the text below them. If we except the
central and more elevated figure, which may represent the supreme
Ormazd, and those of Darius and his two attendants, to the left of the
design, we may pronounce the rest of the group as deficient in artisti-
eal beauty, and, indeed, show but a hieratic style. # Their forms are
diminutive, stiff, and ill-defined ; and their habiliments, though well
marked, betray no elegance of drapery whatever: the limbs are coarse
and misshapen, and their countenances devoid either of animation or
expression. Nine of these figures are standing, and are attached to each
other by a long cord passing around their necks. Their hands are
bound behind them. The badness of design, and dwarflike forms, in this
portion of the sculptures, I presume, is intentional, to denote the inferior
and degrading position of the captives,—the metamorphosis serving to
convey to the minds of the ignorant and uninitiated the more exalted
position and greater virtues of the conqueror, who is represented by a
commanding stature, in the attitude of a victor, with his left foot on the
body of a prostrate foe, the tenth of the captive group. The form of the
Botta at Khorsabad. For the antiquity of wall-painting we must refer to Ezekiel,
who wrote some 600 years before Christ; and it is not a little singular that his words
should be verified at the present dav by the exhumation of Assyrian relics, and the
opening of Assyrian temples. In Chap. XXIIL, v. 14, he describes these paint
ings : u Men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtraye
with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire
upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Baby
lonians of Chaldea, the land ot their nativity.
Sir Humphrey Davy analysed some of the “ frit” found on ancient walls, and
describes^ it as a composition resembling stone, a species of artificial a lapis lazu i,
the coloring matter of which is inherent in a hard siliceous stone.
See Greek and Roman Antiquities—Color and Painting.
^ The earliest sculptures and carvings were thus denominated, when clumsy
figures represented the deities and other sacred emblems.