Stands with shelves often terminate, like other articles of furniture, in animals’ feet, most commonly lions’, as in the accompanying specimens. [PLATE LXXXV., Fig. 5.]

Of the embroidered robes and draperies of the Assyrians, as of their furniture, we can judge only by the representations made of them upon the bas-reliefs.  The delicate texture of such fabrics has prevented them from descending to our day even in the most tattered condition; and the ancient testimonies on the subject are for the most part too remote from the times of the Assyrians to be of much value.  Ezekiel’s notice is the only one which comes within such a period of Assyria’s fall as to make it an important testimony, and even from this we cannot gather much that goes beyond the evidence of the sculptures.  The sculptures show us that robes and draperies of all kinds were almost always more or less patterned; and this patterning, which is generally of an extremely elaborate kind, it is reasonable to conclude was the work of the needle.  Sometimes the ornamentation is confined to certain portions of garments, as to the ends of sleeves and the bottoms of robes or tunics; at others it is extended over the whole dress.  This is more particularly the case with the garments of the kings, which are of a magnificence difficult to describe, or to represent within a narrow compass. [PLATE LXXXVI, Fig. 1.] One or two specimens, however, may be given almost at random, indicating different styles of ornamentation usual in the royal apparel.  Other examples will be seen in the many illustrations throughout this volume where the king is represented.  It is remarkable that the earliest representations exhibit the most elaborate types of all, after which a reaction seems to set in simplicity is affected, which, however, is gradually trenched upon, until at last a magnificence is reached little short of that which prevailed in the age of the first monuments.  The draperies of Asshur-izir-pal in the north-west palace at Nimrud, are at once more minutely labored and more tasteful than those of any later time.  Besides elegant but unmeaning patterns, they exhibit human and animal forms, sacred trees, sphinxes, griffins, winged horses, and occasionally bull-hunts and lion-hunts.  The upper part of this king’s dress is in one instance almost covered with figures, which range themselves round a circular breast ornament, whereof the cut opposite is a representation.  Elsewhere his apparel is less superb, and indeed it presents almost every degree of richness, from the wonderful embroidery of the robe just mentioned to absolute plainness.  In the celebrated picture of the lion-hunt. [PLATE LXXXVI., Fig. 2.] With Sargon, the next king who has left many monuments, the case is remarkably different.  Sargon is represented always in the same dress—­a long fringed robe, embroidered simply with rosettes, which are spread somewhat scantily over its whole surface.  Sennacherib’s apparel is nearly of the same kind, or, if anything, richer, though sometimes the rosettes are omitted His grandson, Asshur-bani-pal, also affects the rosette ornament, but reverts alike to the taste and the elaboration of the early kings.  He wears a breast ornament containing human figures, around which are ranged a number of minute and elaborate patterns. [PLATE LXXXVII.]