ASSYRIAN MONUMENTS. 



105 



fig. 42 may be entirely of Assyrian origin, and may have 

 had nothing to do with the lotus. They may readily 

 be interpreted into a date-head of foliage and horns, 

 and a pomegranate. The misfortune is that the lotus 

 seed-pod of the Egyptian Monuments is rather conven- 

 tional. In stone, the multiple limbs of the stigmatic 

 star were rendered by only three limbs ; and the body 

 of the pod was given a too globose outline. These 

 somewhat unreal and rude outlines of a thing are to 

 be seen everywhere. Then that conventional sculpture 

 becomes the model for others, and it becomes perpetuated. 



Fig. 42. — Assyrian palmette with lotus bulb, fig. 60, p. no, 

 'Grammar of the Lotus.' 



It so happens that this conventional outline of the 

 lotus pod assimilates with the real outline of a pome- 

 granate, so that in many cases it is far from easy to 

 say this, and not that, was the model. A potter, copy- 

 ing from some previous vessel, thinks little of the genesis 



