Part 6 (1/2)
The greater part of these seals are a.s.syrian, but with them are others bearing Egyptian, Phoenician, and doubtful symbols and characters.
Sometimes the same seal is impressed more than once on the same piece of clay. The a.s.syrian devices are of various kinds; the most common is that of a king plunging a dagger into the body of a rampant lion. This appears to have been the royal, and, indeed, the national, seal or signet. It is frequently encircled by a short inscription, which has not yet been deciphered, or by a simple guilloche border. The same group, emblematic of the superior power and wisdom of the king, as well as of his sacred character, is found on a.s.syrian cylinders, gems, and monuments.
Other devices found among these impressions of seals are:--1. A king, attended by a priest, in act of adoration before a deity standing on a lion, and surrounded by seven stars: above the G.o.d's head, on one seal, is a scorpion. 2. The king, followed by an attendant bearing a parasol, and preceded by a rampant horse. 3. A G.o.d, or the king, probably the former, rising from a crescent. There appears to be a fish in front of the figure.
4. The king, with an eunuch or priest before him; a flower, or ornamented staff, between them. 5. A scorpion, surrounded by a guilloche border (a device of very frequent occurrence, and probably astronomical). 6. A priest wors.h.i.+pping before a G.o.d. Behind him are a bull, and the sacred astronomical emblems. 8. An ear of corn, surrounded by a fancy border. 9.
An object resembling a dagger, with flowers attached to the handle; perhaps a sacrificial knife. 10. The head of a bull and a trident, two sacred symbols of frequent occurrence on a.s.syrian monuments. 11. A crescent in the midst of a many-rayed star. 12. Several rudely cut seals, representing priests and various sacred animals, stars, &c.
The seals most remarkable for beauty of design and skilful execution represent hors.e.m.e.n, one at full speed raising a spear, the other hunting a stag. The impressions show that they were little inferior to Greek intaglios. No a.s.syrian or Babylonian relics yet discovered, equal them in delicacy of workmans.h.i.+p, and the best examples of the art of engraving on gems,--an art which appears to have reached great perfection amongst the a.s.syrians,--are unknown to us, except through these impressions.
There are three seals apparently Phoenician; two of them bearing Phoenician characters, for which I cannot suggest any interpretation. A few have doubtful symbols upon them, which I will not attempt to explain; perhaps hieroglyphical signs.
Of the purely Egyptian seals there are four. One has two cartouches placed on the symbol of gold, and each surmounted by a tall plume; they probably contained the praenomen and name of a king, but not the slightest trace remains of the hieroglyphs. The impression is concave, having been made from a convex surface: the back of some of the Egyptian ovals, the rudest form of the scarabaeus, are of this shape. On the second seal is the figure of the Egyptian G.o.d Harpocrates, seated on a lotus flower, with his finger placed upon his mouth; an att.i.tude in which he is represented on an ivory from Nimroud. The hieroglyph before him does not appear to be Egyptian.
But the most remarkable and important of the Egyptian seals are two impressions of a royal signet, which, though imperfect, retain the cartouche, with the name of the king, so as to be perfectly legible. It is one well known to Egyptian scholars, as that of the second Sabaco the aethiopian, of the twenty-fifth dynasty. On the same piece of clay is impressed an a.s.syrian seal, with a device representing a priest ministering before the king, probably a royal signet.
There can be no doubt whatever as to the ident.i.ty of the cartouche. Sabaco reigned in Egypt at the end of the seventh century before Christ, the exact time at which Sennacherib came to the throne. He is probably the So mentioned in the second book of Kings (xvii. 4.) as having received amba.s.sadors from Hoshea, the king of Israel, who, by entering into a league with the Egyptians, called down the vengeance of Shalmaneser, whose tributary he was, which led to the first great captivity of the people of Samaria. Shalmaneser we know to have been an immediate predecessor of Sennacherib, and Tirakhah, the Egyptian king, who was defeated by the a.s.syrians near Lachish, was the immediate successor of Sabaco II.
It would seem that a peace having been concluded between the Egyptians and one of the a.s.syrian monarchs, probably Sennacherib, the royal signets of the two kings, thus found together, were attached to the treaty, which was deposited amongst the archives of the kingdom. Whilst the doc.u.ment itself, written upon parchment or papyrus, has completely perished, this singular proof of the alliance, if not actual meeting, of the two monarchs is still preserved amidst the remains of the state papers of the a.s.syrian empire; furnis.h.i.+ng one of the most remarkable instances of confirmatory evidence on record,[65] whether we regard it as verifying the correctness of the interpretation of the cuneiform character, or as an ill.u.s.tration of Scripture history.
Little doubt, I trust, can now exist in the minds of my readers as to the identification of the builder of the palace of Kouyunjik, with the Sennacherib of Scripture. Had the name stood alone, we might reasonably have questioned the correctness of the reading, especially as the signs or monograms, with which it is written, are admitted to have no phonetic power. But when characters, whose alphabetic values have been determined from a perfectly distinct source, such as the Babylonian column of the trilingual inscriptions, furnish us with names in the records attributed to Sennacherib, written almost identically as in the Hebrew version of the Bible, such as Hezekiah, Jerusalem, Judah, Sidon, and others, and all occurring in one and the same paragraph, their reading, moreover, confirmed by synchronisms, and ill.u.s.trated by sculptured representations of the events, the identification must be admitted to be complete.
The palace of Khorsabad, as I have already observed, was built by the father of Sennacherib. The edifice in the south-west corner of Nimroud was raised by the son, as we learn from the inscription on the back of the bulls discovered in that building. The name of the king is admitted to be Essarhaddon, and there are events, as it will hereafter be seen, mentioned in his records, which further tend to identify him with the Essarhaddon of Scripture, who, after the murder of his father Sennacherib, succeeded to the throne.
I may mention in conclusion, as connected with the bulls forming the grand entrance, that in the rubbish at the foot of one of them were found four cylinders and several beads, with a scorpion in lapis lazuli, all apparently once strung together. On one cylinder of translucent green felspar, called amazon stone, which I believe to have been the signet, or amulet, of Sennacherib himself, is engraved the king standing in an arched frame as on the rock tablets at Bavian, and at the Nahr-el-Kelb in Syria.
The intaglio of this beautiful gem is not deep but sharp and distinct, and the details are so minute, that a magnifying gla.s.s is almost required to perceive them.
On a smaller cylinder, in the same green felspar, is a cuneiform inscription, which has not yet been deciphered, but which does not appear to contain any royal name. On two cylinders of onyx, also found at Kouyunjik, and now in the British Museum, are, however, the name and t.i.tles of Sennacherib.
CHAPTER VII.
ROAD OPENED FOR REMOVAL OF WINGED LIONS.--DISCOVERY OF VAULTED DRAIN.--OF OTHER ARCHES.--OF PAINTED BRICKS.--ATTACK OF THE TAI ON THE VILLAGE OF NIMROUD.--VISIT TO THE HOWAR.--DESCRIPTION OF THE ENCAMPMENT OF THE TAI.--THE PLAIN OF SHOMAMOK.--SHEIKH FARAS.--WALI BEY.--RETURN TO NIMROUD.
The gigantic human-headed lions, first discovered in the north-west palace at Nimroud, were still standing in their original position. Having been carefully covered up with earth previous to my departure in 1848, they had been preserved from exposure to the effects of the weather, and to wanton injury on the part of the Arabs. The Trustees of the British Museum wis.h.i.+ng to add these fine sculptures to the national collection, I was directed to remove them entire. A road through the ruins, for their transport to the edge of the mound, was in the first place necessary, and it was commenced early in December. They would thus be ready for embarkation as soon as the waters of the river were sufficiently high to bear a raft so heavily laden, over the rapids and shallows between Nimroud and Baghdad. This road was dug to the level of the pavement or artificial platform, and was not finished till the end of February, as a large ma.s.s of earth and rubbish had to be taken away to the depth of fifteen or twenty feet. During the progress of the work we found some carved fragments of ivory similar to those already placed in the British Museum; and two ma.s.sive sockets in bronze, in which turned the hinges of a gate of the palace. No remains of the door-posts, or other parts of the gate, were discovered in the ruins, and it is uncertain whether these rings were fixed in stone or wood.[66]
In the south-eastern corner of the mound tunnels carried beneath the ruined edifice, which is of the seventh century B. C., showed the remains of an earlier building. A _vaulted_ drain, about five feet in width, was also discovered. The arch was turned with large kiln-burnt bricks, and rested upon side walls of the same material. The bricks being square, and not expressly made for vaulting, a s.p.a.ce was left above the centre of the arch, which was filled up by bricks, laid longitudinally.
Although this may not be a perfect arch, we have seen from the vaulted chamber discovered in the very centre of the high mound at the north-west corner, that the a.s.syrians were well acquainted at an early period with its true principle. Other examples were not wanting in the ruins. The earth falling away from the sides of the deep trench opened in the north-west palace for the removal of the bull and lion during the former excavations, left uncovered the entrance to a vaulted drain or pa.s.sage, built of sun-dried bricks. Beneath was a small watercourse, inclosed by square pieces of alabaster. A third arch, equally perfect in character, was found beneath the ruins of the south-east edifice. A tunnel had been opened almost on a level with the plain, and carried far into the southern face of the mound, but without the discovery of any other remains of building than this solitary brick arch.
In the south-east corner of the quadrangle, formed by the low mounds marking the walls once surrounding this quarter of the city of Nineveh, or the park attached to the royal residence, the level of the soil is considerably higher than in any other part of the inclosed s.p.a.ce. This sudden inequality evidently indicates the site of some ancient edifice.
Connected with it, rising abruptly, and almost perpendicularly, from the plain, and forming one of the corners of the walls, is a lofty, irregular mound, which is known to the Arabs by the name of the Tel of Athur, the Lieutenant of Nimroud.[67] Tunnels and trenches opened in it showed nothing but earth, unmingled even with bricks or fragments of stone.
Remains of walls and a pavement of baked bricks were, however, discovered in the lower part of the platform. The bricks had evidently been taken from some other building, for upon them were traces of coloured figures and patterns, of the same character as those on the sculptured walls of the palaces. Their painted faces were placed downwards, as if purposely to conceal them, and the designs upon them were in most instances injured or destroyed. A few fragments were collected, and are now in the British Museum. The colors have faded, but were probably once as bright as the enamels of Khorsabad. The outlines are white, and the ground a pale blue and olive green. The only other color used is a dull yellow. The most interesting specimens are:--
1. Four captives tied together by their necks, the end of the rope being held by the foremost prisoner, whose hands are free, whilst the others have their arms bound behind. They probably formed part of a line of captives led by an a.s.syrian warrior. They are beardless, and have bald heads, to which is attached a single feather.[68] Two of them have white cloths round their loins, the others long white s.h.i.+rts open in front, like the s.h.i.+rt of the modern Arab. The figures on this fragment are yellow on a blue ground.
2. Similar captives followed by an a.s.syrian soldier. The armour of the warrior is that of the later period, the scales and greaves are painted blue and yellow, and the tunic blue. The ground blue.
3. Parts of two horses, of a man holding a dagger, and of an a.s.syrian warrior. The horses are blue. The man appears to have been wounded or slain in battle, and is naked, with the exception of a twisted blue cloth round the loins. Ground an olive green.