In the British Museum is an elaborate piece of carved ivory, with
depressions to hold colored glass, etc., from Nineveh, which once formed
part of the inlaid ornament of a throne, shewing how richly such objects
were ornamented. This carving is said by the authorities to be of
Egyptian origin. The treatment of figures by the Assyrians was more
clumsy and more rigid, and their furniture generally was more massive than
that of the Egyptians.

An ornament often introduced into the designs of thrones and chairs is a
conventional treatment of the tree sacred to Asshur, the Assyrian Jupiter;
the pine cone, another sacred emblem, is also found, sometimes as in the
illustration of the Khorsabad chair on page 4, forming an ornamental foot,
and at others being part of the merely decorative design.

The bronze throne, illustrated on page 3, appears to have been of
sufficient height to require a footstool, and in "Nineveh and its Remains"
these footstools are specially alluded to. "The feet were ornamented like
those of the chair with the feet of lions or the hoofs of bulls."

The furniture represented in the following illustration, from a bas relief
in the British Museum, is said to be of a period some two hundred years
later than the bronze throne and footstool.

[Illustration: Repose of King Asshurbanipal. (_From a Bas relief in the
British Museum._)]



Egyptian Furniture.