WHEN Belshazzar, the Chaldean, at the feast, inflated with wine, drank before his thousand lords, he called for the gold and silver vessels which had been taken by his father from Jehovah’s temple in Jerusalem. And he and his princes, his wives, and his concubines drank in them; and having thus insulted the God of Israel, they praised their gods of metal, wood, and stone. At that same hour, in the midst of the revelry at the palace, there came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote his doom upon the plaster of the wall, and on that night Belshazzar was slain.
“The plaster of the wall” was a kind of stucco, with which the Chaldeans covered and decorated their walls. They were particularly gifted in enamel and stucco work, and fragments of “the plaster of the wall” of the palace and noble buildings are with us today. The accompanying illustration is from a painting on the plaster of a palace of Nimroud. At the lower part of the wall, slabs sculptured in bas-relief were placed ; above them came the plaster, gorgeously colored. Some of these borders are very handsome, and that of the bulls, rendered upon a yellow ground with the broad dark outline, is regarded as a masterpiece. The Chaldeans used enameled brick to a large extent in their buildings, and these bricks, after the lapse of centuries, are as beautiful as ever they were.
The colored figures given upon the bricks were often very excellent in design and color. Here is one, also from Nimroud. It portrays a king offering a libation, and attended by two warriors. Some of this work was prepared upon what may be termed a slab of clay. The artist executed his design upon the clay, making a perfect model; the colors were afterwards laid on; the whole was then marked off and divided into “bricks,” and these were baked. After being baked, the “bricks” were put together and joined with bitumen. Such work lasts longer than stone, and practically for the life of a world. It was these works of art, which in their way have never been excelled, which called forth Ezekiel’s words “She saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea.” If the fragments of the wall decorations which lie in their ruins in Chaldea could only be carefully sorted and built up together once more, we should have as fine picture galleries of Babylonia as we now possess of Egypt. And thus we should obtain further help in reading into the Bible story, the manners and habits of the people of which it speaks.