The human appears to be inferior to the animal form.  The prostrate man is altogether shapeless, and can never, it would seem, have been very much better than it is at the present time.

Modelled figures in clay are of rare occurrence.  The best is one figured by Ker Porter, which represents a mother with a child in her arms.  The mother is seated in a natural and not ungraceful attitude on a rough square pedestal.  She is naked except for a hood, or mantilla, which covers the head, shoulders, and back, and a narrow apron which hangs down in front.  She wears earrings and a bracelet.  The child, which sleeps on her left shoulder, wears a shirt open in front, and a short but full tunic, which is gathered into plaits.  Both figures are in simple and natural taste, but the limbs of the infant are somewhat too thin and delicate.  The statuette is about three inches and a half high, and shows signs of having been covered with a tinted glaze. [PLATE XVII., Fig. 2.]

The single figure of a king which we possess is clumsy and ungraceful.  It is chiefly remarkable for the elaborate ornamentation of the head-dress and the robes, which have a finish equal to that of the best Assyrian specimens.  The general proportions are not bad; but the form is stiff, and the drawing of the right hand is peculiarly faulty, since it would be scarcely possible to hold arrows in the manner represented. [PLATE XVIII., Fig. 2.]

[Illustration:  PLATE VXIII.]

The engraved animal forms have a certain amount of merit.  The figure of a dog sitting, which is common on the “black stones,” is drawn with spirit; [PLATE XVIII., Fig. 1.] and a bird, sometimes regarded as a cock, but more resembling a bustard, is touched with a delicate hand, and may be pronounced superior to any Assyrian representation of the feathered tribe. [PLATE XVIII., Fig. 3.] The hound on a bas-relief, given in the first volume of this work, is also good; and the cylinders exhibit figures of goats, cows, deer, and even monkeys, which are truthful and meritorious. [PLATE XIX., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration:  PLATE XIX.]

It has been observed that the main characteristic of the engravings on gems and cylinders, considered as works of mimetic art, is their quaintness and grotesqueness.  A few specimens, taken almost at random from the admirable collection of M. Felix Lajard, will sufficiently illustrate this feature.  In one the central position is occupied by a human figure whose left arm has two elbow-joints, while towards the right two sitting figures threaten one another with their fists, in the upper quarter, and in the lower two nondescript animals do the same with their jaws. [PLATE XVIII., Fig. 4.] The entire drawing of this design seems to be intentionally rude.  The faces of the main figures are evidently intended to be ridiculous; and the heads of the two animals are extravagantly grotesque.  On another cylinder three nondescript animals play the principal part.