Now and then an intense blue and a bright red occur, generally together; but these positive hues are rare, and the taste of the Assyrians seems to have led them to prefer, for their patterned walls, pale and dull hues.
The same preference appears, even more strikingly, in the bricks on which designs are represented.

There the tints almost exclusively used are pale yellow, pale greenish blue, olive green, white, and a brownish black.

It is suggested that the colors have faded, but of this there is no evidence.

The Assyrians, when they used the primitive hues, seem, except in the case of red, to have employed subdued tints of them, and red they appear to have introduced very sparingly.

Olive-green they affected for grounds, and they occasionally used other half-tints.