The highest perfection of Assyrian art is in the third period, which extends from B.C. 667 to about B.C. 640.  It synchronizes with the reign of Asshur-bani-pal, the son of Essarhaddon, who appears to have been contemporary with Gyges in Lydia, and with Psammetichus in Egypt.  The characteristics of the time are a less conventional type in the vegetable forms, a wonderful freedom spirit, and variety in the forms of animals, extreme minuteness and finish in the human figures, and a delicacy in the handling considerably beyond that of even the second or middle period.  The sources illustrative of this stage of the art consist of the plates in Mr. Layard’s “Second Series of Monuments,” from plate 45 to 49, the originals of these in the British Museum, the noble series of slabs obtained by Mr. Loftus from the northern palace of Koyunjik, and of the drawings made from them, and from other slabs, which were in a more damaged condition by Mr. Boutcher, who accompanied Mr. Loftus in the capacity of artist.

Vegetable forms are, on the whole, somewhat rare.  The artists have relinquished the design of representing scenes with perfect truthfulness, and have recurred as a general rule to the plain backgrounds of the first period.  This is particularly the case in the hunting scenes, which are seldom accompanied by any landscape whatsoever.  In processional and military scenes landscape is introduced, but sparingly; the forms, for the most part, resembling those of the second period.  Now and then, however, in such scenes the landscape has been made the object of special attention, becoming the prominent part, while the human figures are accessories.  It is here that an advance in art is particularly discernible.  In one set of slabs a garden seems to be represented.  Vines are trained upon trees, which may be either firs or cypresses, winding elegantly around their stems, and on either side letting fall their pendent branches laden with fruit. [PLATE LXVIII..  Fig. 2.] Leaves. branches, and tendrils are delineated with equal truth and finish, a most pleasing and graceful effect being thereby produced.  Irregularly among the trees occur groups of lilies, some in bud, some in full blow, all natural, graceful, and spirited. [PLATE LXIX., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration:  PLATE 69]

[Illustration:  PLATE 70]

It is difficult to do justice to the animal delineation of this period. without reproducing before the eye of the reader the entire series of reliefs and drawings which belong to it.  It is the infinite variety in the attitudes, even more than the truth and naturalness of any particular specimens, that impresses us as we contemplate the series.  Lions, wild asses, dogs, deer, wild goats, horses, are represented in profusion:  and we scarcely find a single form which is repeated.  Some specimens have been already given, as the hunted stag and hind [PLATE XXVII.] and the startled wild ass [PLATE XXVI.] Others will occur among the illustrations of the next chapter.