Note 246 — Chapter II · SCULPTURE. (continued 2)

Among the reliefs in which the transport of the materials for Sargon’s palace is represented, there is one which shows timber being dragged down to the Phœnician coast. Here the sea is no longer indicated merely by sinuous lines and a few fishes as in most of the earlier reliefs; there are all kinds of animals, shells, turtles, crabs, frogs, and even sea-serpents (Botta, Monument de Ninive, plate 34). In one place we find a wooded hill, with trees still of indeterminate form (plate 78). In another we may recognize pines in the forest traversed by the Assyrian cavalry (plates 108–113); birds fly among the branches and several among them fall pierced with the arrows of the hunters. Other trees bear fruit (plate 114). Partridges run upon the slopes of the hill. See also in the basalt reliefs from the building we have called a temple, a coniferous tree of some kind, probably a cypress, the general form of which is very well rendered (Place, Ninive, plate 48).