forming the tapering points; and large quantities of small
objects, including a box of plain form and simple decoration
identified from the inscribed praenomen as the fifth dynasty,
about 4000 B.C. The British Museum and the museum at Cairo
are also comparatively rich. But no other collection in the world
contains such an interesting collection of ancient Assyrian
ivories as that in the British Museum. Those exhibited number
some fifty important pieces, and many other fragments are, on
account of their fragility or state of decay, stowed away. The
collection is the result of the excavations by Layard about 1840
on the supposed site of Nineveh opposite the modern city of
Mosul. When found they were so decomposed from the lapse
of time as scarcely to bear touching or the contact of the external
air. Layard hit upon the ingenious plan of boiling in a solution
of gelatine and thus restoring to them the animal matter which
had dried up in the course of centuries. Later, the explorations
of Flinders Petrie and others at Abydos brought to light a considerable
number of sculptured fragments which may be even
two thousand years older than those of Nineveh. They have
been exhibited in London and since distributed amongst various
museums at home and abroad.
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| From photo by W. A. Mansell & Co. |
| Fig. 4.—Leaf of diptych showing combats with stags; in the Liverpool Museum. |
Consular and Official and Private Diptychs.—About fifty of the remarkable plaques called “consular diptychs,” of the time of the three last centuries of the consulates of the Roman and Greek empire have been preserved. They range in date from perhaps mid-fourth to mid-sixth centuries, and as with two or three exceptions the dates are certain it would be difficult to overestimate their historic or intrinsic value. The earliest of absolutely certain date is the diptych of Aosta (A.D. 408), the first after the recognition of Christianity; or, if the Monza diptych represents, as some think, the Consul Stilicon, then we may refer back six years earlier. At any rate the edict of Theodosius in A.D. 384, concerning the restriction of the use of ivory to the diptychs of the regular consuls, is evidence that the custom must have been long established. According to some authorities the beautiful leaf of diptych in the Liverpool Museum (fig. 4) is a consular one and to be ascribed to Marcus Julius Philippus (A.D. 248). Similarly the Gherardesca leaf in the British Museum may be accepted as of the Consul Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 308). But the whole question of the half dozen earliest examples is conjectural. With a few notable exceptions they show decadence in art. Amongst the finest may be cited the leaf with the combats with stags at Liverpool, the diptych of Probianus at Berlin and the two leaves, one of Anastasius, the other of Orestes, in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The literature concerning these diptychs is voluminous, from the time of the erudite treatise by Gori published in 1759 to the present day. The latest of certain date is that of Basilius, consul of the East in 541, the last of the consuls. The diptychs of private individuals or of officials number about sixteen, and in the case of the private ones have a far greater artistic value. Of these the Victoria and Albert Museum possesses the most beautiful leaf of perhaps the finest example of ancient ivory sculpture which has come down to us, diptychon Meleretense, representing a Bacchante (fig. 5). The other half, which is much injured, is in the Cluny Museum. Other important pieces are the Aesculapius and Hygeia at Liverpool, the Hippolytus and Phaedra at Brescia, the Barberini in the Bargello and at Vienna and the Rufius Probianus at Berlin. Besides the diptychs ancient Greek and Roman ivories before the recognition of Christianity are comparatively small in number and are mostly in the great museums of the Vatican, Naples, the British Museum, the Louvre and the Cluny Museum. Amongst them are the statuette of Penthea, perhaps of the 3rd century (Cluny), a large head of a woman (museum of Vienna) and the Bellerophon (British Museum), nor must those of the Roman occupation in England and other countries be forgotten. Notable instances are the plaque and ivory mask found at Caerleon. Others are now in the Guildhall and British Museums, and most continental European museums have examples connected with their own history.
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| Fig. 5.—Leaf of Roman diptych, representing a Bacchante; in the Victoria and Albert Museum. |
From photo by W. A. Mansell & Co. |
| Fig. 6.—Leaf of Diptych, representing Archangel; in the British Museum. |
Early Christian and Early Byzantine Ivories.—The few examples we possess of Christian ivories previous to the time of Constantine are not of great importance from the point of view of the history of art. But after that date the ivories which we may ascribe to the centuries from the end of the 4th to at least the end of the 9th become of considerable interest, on account of their connexion with the development of Byzantine art in western Europe. With regard to exact origins and dates opinions are largely divergent. In great part they are due to the carrying on of traditions and styles by which the makers of the sarcophagi were inspired, and the difficulties of ascription are increased when in addition to the primitive elements the influence of Byzantine systems introduced many new ideas derived from many extraneous sources. The questions involved are of no small archaeological, iconographical and artistic importance, but it must be admitted that we are reduced to conjecture in many cases, and compelled to theorize. And it would seem to be impossible to be more precise as to dates than within a margin of sometimes three centuries. Then, again, we are met by the question how far these ivories are connected with Byzantine art; whether they were made in the West by immigrant Greeks, or indigenous works, or purely imported productions. Some German critics have endeavoured to construct a system of schools, and to form definite groups, assigning them to Rome, Ravenna, Milan and Monza. Not only so, but they claim to be precise in dating even to a certain decade of a century. But it is certainly more than doubtful whether there is sufficient evidence on which to found such assumptions. It is at least probable that a considerable number of the ivories whose dates are given by such a number of critics so wide a range as from the 4th to the 10th century are nothing more than the work of the monks of the numerous monasteries founded throughout the Carlovingian empire, copying and adapting from whatever
