The scarlet and white of the king's tiara is likely to be true.

When, however, we find eyeballs and eyebrows white, while the inner part of the eye is yellow, the blade of swords yellow, and horses' hoofs blue we seem to have proof that, sometimes at any rate, local color was intentionally neglected, the artist limiting himself to certain hues, and being therefore obliged to render some objects untruly.

Thus we must not conclude front the colors of dresses and horse trappings on the bricks which are three only, yellow, blue and white--that the Assyrians used no other hues than those, even for the robes of their kings.

It is far more probable that they employed a variety of tints in their apparel, but did not attempt to render that variety on the ordinary painted bricks.
The pigments used by the Assyrians seem to have derived their tints entirely from minerals.

The opaque white is found to be oxide of tin; the yellow is the antimoniate of lead, or Naples yellow, with a slight admixture of tin; the blue is oxide of copper, without any cobalt; the green is also from copper; the brown is from iron; and the red is a suboxide of copper.