Part 14 (1/2)
We had a seven hours' ride on the delouls, leaving the caravan to follow, to the large ruin of Abou Maria,[137] pa.s.sing through Tel Afer. The Jehesh were encamped about two miles from the place. My workmen had excavated for some time in these remarkable mounds, and had discovered chambers and several enormous slabs of Mosul marble, but no remains whatever of sculpture.
A short ride of three hours brought us to Eski (old) Mosul, on the banks of the Tigris. According to tradition this is the original site of the city. There are mounds, and the remains of walls, which are probably a.s.syrian. Mosul was still nine caravan hours distant, and we encamped the next night at Hamaydat, where many of our friends came out to meet us. On the 10th of May we were again within the walls of the town, our desert trip having been accomplished without any mishap or accident whatever.
Suttum left us two days after for his tents, fearing lest he should be too late to join the warriors of the Khorusseh, who had planned a grand _ghazou_ into Nedjd. He urged me to accompany them; but I had long renounced such evil habits, and other occupations kept me in Mosul.
Finding that I was not to be persuaded, and that the time was at length come for us to part, he embraced me, crammed the presents we had made to himself and his wives into his saddle-bags, and, mounting his deloul, rode off with Mijwell towards the Desert.
CHAPTER XVI.
DISCOVERIES AT KOUYUNJIK.--PROCESSION OF FIGURES BEARING FRUIT AND GAME.--LOCUSTS.--LED HORSES.--AN a.s.sYRIAN CAMPAIGN.--DAGON, OR THE FISH-G.o.d.--THE CHAMBERS OF RECORDS.--INSCRIBED CLAY TABLETS.--RETURN TO NIMROUD.--EFFECTS OF THE FLOOD.--DISCOVERIES.--SMALL TEMPLE UNDER HIGH MOUND.--THE EVIL SPIRIT.--FISH-G.o.d.--FINE BAS-RELIEF OF THE KING.--EXTRACTS FROM THE INSCRIPTION.--GREAT INSCRIBED MONOLITH.--EXTRACTS FROM THE INSCRIPTION.--CEDAR BEAMS.--SMALL OBJECTS.--SECOND TEMPLE.--MARBLE FIGURE AND OTHER OBJECTS.
During my absence in the Desert, the excavations at Kouyunjik had been actively carried on under the superintendence of Toma s.h.i.+shman. On my arrival he described many interesting discoveries, and I hastened to the ruins, crossing in a rude ferry-boat the river, now swollen, by the spring rains, to more than double its usual size.[138]
The earth had been completely removed from the sides of the long gallery, on the walls of which had been portrayed the transport of the large stone and of the winged bulls. An outlet was discovered near its western end, opening into a narrow descending pa.s.sage; an entrance, it would appear, into the palace from the river side. Its length was ninety-six feet, its breadth not more than thirteen. The walls were panelled with sculptured slabs about six feet high. Those to the right, in descending, represented a procession of servants carrying fruit, flowers, game, and supplies for a banquet, preceded by mace-bearers. The first servant following the guard bore an object which I should not hesitate to identify with the pineapple, unless there were every reason to believe that the a.s.syrians were unacquainted with that fruit. The leaves sprouting from the top proved that it was not the cone of a pine tree or fir. After all, the sacred symbol held by the winged figures in the a.s.syrian sculptures, may be the same fruit, and not, as I have conjectured, that of a coniferous tree.
The attendants who followed carried cl.u.s.ters of ripe dates and flat baskets of osier-work, filled with pomegranates, apples, and bunches of grapes. They raised in one hand small green boughs to drive away the flies. Then came men bearing hares, partridges, and dried locusts fastened on rods. The locust has ever been an article of food in the East, and is still sold in the markets of many towns in Arabia.[139] Being introduced in this bas-relief amongst the choice delicacies of a banquet, it was probably highly prized by the a.s.syrians.
The locust-bearers were followed by a man with strings of pomegranates; then came, two by two, attendants carrying on their shoulders low tables, such as are still used in the East at feasts, loaded with baskets of cakes and fruits of various kinds. The procession was finished by a long line of servants bearing vases of flowers.
These figures were dressed in a short tunic, confined at the waist by a shawl or girdle. They wore no headgear, their hair falling in curls on their shoulders.
On the opposite walls of the pa.s.sage were fourteen horses without trappings, each horse having a simple halter twisted round its lower jaw, by which it was led by a groom. The animals and men were designed with considerable truth and spirit.
It is probable that the sculptures forming the upper end of the pa.s.sage, but now entirely destroyed, represented the king receiving this double procession. The pa.s.sage may have led to the banqueting-hall, or to a chamber, where royal feasts were sometimes held, and was therefore adorned with appropriate subjects. At its western end the gallery turned abruptly to the north, its walls being there built of solid stone-masonry. I lost all further traces of it, as the workmen were unable, at that time, to carry on the tunnel beneath an acc.u.mulated ma.s.s of earth and rubbish about forty feet thick.
As the workmen could no longer, without some danger, excavate in this part of the ruins, they had returned to the chamber already described as containing a series of bas-reliefs representing the capture and sack of a large city in the mountains, and as opening into the broad gallery on whose walls were depictured the various processes employed by the a.s.syrians in moving their colossal figures. From this chamber branched to the south a narrow pa.s.sage, whose sculptured panels had been purposely destroyed. It led into a great hall, which the workmen did not then explore. They continued for a few feet along its western side, and then turning through a doorway, discovered a chamber, from which again, always following the line of wall, they entered a s.p.a.cious apartment, completely surrounded with bas-reliefs, representing one continuous subject. The a.s.syrian army was seen fording a broad river amidst wooded mountains. The king in his chariot was followed by a long retinue of warriors on foot and on horses richly caparisoned, by led horses with even gayer trappings, and by men bearing on their shoulders his second chariot, which had a yoke ornamented with bosses and carvings. After crossing the river they attacked the enemy's strongholds, which they captured one by one, putting to death or carrying into captivity their inhabitants. The captives wore a kind of turban wrapped in several folds round the head, and a short tunic confined at the waist by a broad belt. From the nature of the country it may be conjectured that the sculptures represented a campaign in some part of Armenia, and I am inclined to identify the river with the Euphrates, near whose head-waters, as we learn from the bull inscriptions, Sennacherib waged one of his most important wars.
The slabs at the western end of this chamber were actually _curved backwards_, showing the enormous pressure that must have taken place from the falling in of the upper part of the building, by which not only the alabaster was bent, but driven into the wall of sundried bricks.
On the north side of the chamber were two doorways leading into separate apartments. Each entrance was formed by two colossal bas-reliefs of Dagon, or the fish-G.o.d. Unfortunately the upper part of all these figures had been destroyed, but as the lower remained from above the waist we can have no difficulty in restoring the whole, especially as the same image is seen entire on a fine a.s.syrian cylinder of agate in my possession. It combined the human shape with that of the fish. The head of the fish formed a mitre above that of the man, whilst its scaly back and fanlike tail fell as a cloak behind, leaving the human limbs and feet exposed. The figure wore a fringed tunic, and bore the two sacred emblems, the basket and the cone.
We can scarcely hesitate to identify this mythic form with the Oannes, or sacred man-fish, who, according to the traditions preserved by Berossus, issued from the Erythraean Sea, instructed the Chaldaeans, in all wisdom, in the sciences, and in the fine arts, and was afterwards wors.h.i.+pped as a G.o.d in the temples of Babylonia. Its body, says the historian, was that of a fish, _but under the head of a fish was that of a man_, and to its tail were joined women's feet. Five such monsters rose from the Persian Gulf at fabulous intervals of time.[140]
The Dagon of the Philistines and of the inhabitants of the Phoenician coast was wors.h.i.+pped, according to the united opinion of the Hebrew commentators on the Bible, under the same form.[141] When the ark of the Lord was brought into the great temple of the idol at Ashdod, and the statue fell a second time, ”the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the _fishy part_ of Dagon was left to him.”[142] His wors.h.i.+p appears to have extended over Syria, as well as Mesopotamia and Chaldaea. He had many temples, as we learn from the Bible, in the country of the Philistines, and it was probably under the ruins of one of them that Samson buried the people of Gaza who had ”gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their G.o.d, and to rejoice.”[143] We also find a Beth-Dagon, or the house of Dagon, amongst the uttermost cities of the children of Judah[144], and another city of the same name in the inheritance of the children of Asher.[145]
The first doorway, guarded by the fish-G.o.ds, led into two small chambers opening into each other, and once panelled with bas-reliefs, the greater part of which had been destroyed. I shall call these chambers ”the chambers of records,” for, like ”the house of the rolls,” or records, which Darius ordered to be searched for the decree of Cyrus, concerning the building of the temple of Jerusalem[146], they appear to have contained the decrees of the a.s.syrian kings, as well as the archives of the empire.
I have mentioned elsewhere[147] that the historical records and public doc.u.ments of the a.s.syrians were kept on tablets and cylinders of baked clay. Many specimens have been brought to this country. The importance of such relics will be readily understood. They present, in a small compa.s.s, an abridgment, or recapitulation, of the inscriptions on the great monuments and palace walls, giving in a chronological series the events of each monarch's reign. The writing is so minute, and the letters are so close one to another, that it requires considerable experience to separate and transcribe them.
The chambers I am describing appear to have been a depository in the palace of Nineveh for such doc.u.ments. To the height of a foot or more from the floor they were entirely filled with them; some entire, but the greater part broken into many fragments, probably by the falling in of the upper part of the building. They were of different sizes; the largest tablets were flat, and measured about 9 inches by 6-1/2 inches; the smaller were slightly convex, and some were not more than an inch long, with but one or two lines of writing. The cuneiform characters on most of them were singularly sharp and well defined, but so minute in some instances as to be almost illegible without a magnifying gla.s.s. These doc.u.ments appear to be of various kinds. Many are historical records of wars, and distant expeditions undertaken by the a.s.syrians; some seem to be royal decrees, and are stamped with the name of a king, the son of Essarhaddon; others again, divided into parallel columns by horizontal lines, contain lists of the G.o.ds, and probably a register of offerings made in their temples. On one Dr. Hincks has detected a table of the value of certain cuneiform letters, expressed by different alphabetical signs, according to various modes of using them; a most important discovery: on another, apparently a list of the sacred days in each month; and on a third, what seems to be a calendar. As we find from the Bavian inscriptions, that the a.s.syrians kept a very accurate computation of time, we may reasonably expect to obtain valuable chronological tables and some information as to their methods of dividing the year, and even the day.
Many are sealed with seals, and may prove to be legal contracts or conveyances of land. Others bear rolled impressions of those engraved cylinders so frequently found in Babylonia and a.s.syria, by some believed to be amulets. The characters appear to have been formed by a very delicate instrument before the clay was hardened by fire, and the process of accurately making letters so minute and complicated must have required considerable ingenuity and experience. On some tablets are found Phoenician, or cursive a.s.syrian characters and other signs.
The adjoining chambers contained similar relics, but in far smaller numbers. Many cases were filled with these tablets before I left a.s.syria, and a vast number of them have been found, I understand, since my departure. A large collection of them is already deposited in the British Museum. We cannot overrate their value. They furnish us with the materials for the complete decipherment of the cuneiform character, for restoring the language and history of a.s.syria, and for inquiring into the customs, sciences, and, we may perhaps even add, literature, of its people. The doc.u.ments that have thus been discovered at Nineveh probably exceed all that have yet been afforded by the monuments of Egypt. But years must elapse before the innumerable fragments can be put together, and the inscriptions transcribed for the use of those who in England and elsewhere may engage in the study of the cuneiform character. It is to be hoped that the Trustees of the British Museum will undertake the publication of doc.u.ments of such importance to the history of the ancient world.
The second entrance formed by the fish-G.o.ds opened into a small chamber, whose sides had been lined with bas-reliefs; but there were no remains of inscriptions.
A few days after our return to Mosul, I floated down the river on a raft to Nimroud. The flood which had spread over the plain during my absence in the Desert, had destroyed a part of the village. The centre of the plain of Nimroud was now a large lake, and the cultivated fields were overspread with slime. The Shemutti gathered round me as I arrived, and told me of crops destroyed, and of houses swept away.
The workmen had not been idle during my absence, and discoveries of considerable interest and importance had been made in the high mound on the level of the artificial platform. The first trenches had been opened in the side of the ravine between the ruins of the tower and those of the north-west palace. A pavement of large square bricks, bearing the usual superscription of the early Nimroud king, was soon uncovered. It led to a wall of sundried bricks, coated with plaster, which proved to be part of a small temple.
I have already mentioned[148] that a superstructure of bricks rested upon the stone bas.e.m.e.nt-wall of the tower, at the north-west corner of the mound. It was against the eastern and southern faces of this upper building that the newly discovered temple ab.u.t.ted. Four of its chambers were explored, chiefly by means of tunnels carried through the enormous ma.s.s of earth and rubbish in which the ruins were buried. The great entrances were to the east. The princ.i.p.al portal was formed by two colossal human-headed lions, sixteen feet and a half high and fifteen feet long. They were flanked by three small winged figures, one above the other, and divided by an ornamental cornice, and between them was an inscribed pavement slab of alabaster. In front of each was a square stone, apparently the pedestal of an altar, and the walls on both sides were adorned with enamelled bricks.