Part 5 (2/2)

In addition to the former tribute imposed upon their countries, I added a tribute, the nature of which I fixed” The next passage is somewhat defaced, but the substance of it appears to be, that he took from Hezekiah the treasure he had collected in Jerusaleold and 800 talents of silver, the treasures of his palace, besides his sons and his daughters, and his ht them all to Nineveh The city itself, however, he does not pretend to have taken

There can be little doubt that the caainst the cities of Palestine recorded in the inscriptions of Sennacherib at Kouyunjik, is that described in the Old Testaree with considerable accuracy We are told in the Book of Kings, that the king of assyria, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah, ”caainst all the fenced cities of Judah and took them,”[56] as he declares himself to have done in his annals And, what is most important, and perhaps one of the most remarkable coincidences of historic testiold taken frorees in the two perfectly independent accounts[57] Too ular fact, as it tends to prove the general accuracy of the historical details contained in the assyrian inscriptions There is a difference of 500 talents, as it will be observed, in the amount of silver It is probable that Hezekiah was ive him all the wealth that he could collect, as we find hi the silver from the house of the Lord, as well as froold from the doors and pillars of the te The Bible may therefore only include the actual amount of money in the 300 talents of silver, whilst the assyrian records comprise all the precious ical discrepancies which cannot at present be satisfactorily reconciled, and which I will not attempt to explain It is natural to suppose that Sennacherib would not perpetuate thebeen unsuccessful in an atteue described in Scripture, he should gloss over his defeat by describing the tribute he had previously received fron

There is no reason to believe, from the biblical account, that Sennacherib was slain by his sons _immediately_ after his return to Nineveh; on the contrary, the expression ”he returned and dwelt at Nineveh,” infers that he continued to reign for soly his further annals on the monuments he erected In his fourth year he went southward, and subdued the country of Beth-Yakin, defeating Susubira, the Chaldaean, elt in the city of Bittut on the river--(Aga to Rawlinson) Furtherwhon, escaped from my principal servants and fled to an island (name lost); his brothers, the seed of his father's house, whom he left behind him on the coast, with the rest of the men of his country from Beth-Yakin, near the _salt_ (?) river (the Shat-el-Arab, or united waters of the Tigris and Euphrates), I carried away, and several of his towns I thren and burnt; assurnad_i to Rawlinson), doovernment, of which Babylon was the chief place

In the fifth year he defeated the Tokkari, capturing their principal stronghold or Nipour (_detached hill-fort_ ?), and others of their castles He also attacked Maniyakh, king of _Okku_ or _Wukku_ (?), a country to which no previous assyrian king had penetrated This chief deserted his capital and fled to a distance Sennacherib carried off the spoil of his palace and plundered his cities This expedition seems to have been to the north of assyria in Ar year Sennacherib again ris, and attacked the two cities of Naghit and Naghit Dibeena Both cities belonged to the King of Ela used indifferently for the sa, in order to reach them, was compelled to build shi+ps, and to eators He brought these vessels down the Tigris, and crossed on the first, it would seehit which stood on the western bank He offered precious sacrifices to a God (?

Neptune, but name doubtful) on the bank of the salt river, and dedicated to hiolden objects, the nature of which has not been deterhit Dibeena, together with three other cities, whose na the river _Ula_ (? the Ulai of Daniel, the Eulaeus of the Greeks, and the e which contains the record of the expedition against these cities is much defaced, and has not yet been satisfactorily restored It appears to give interesting details of the building of the shi+ps on the Tigris, by the ation of that river

Such are the principal historical facts recorded on the bulls placed by Sennacherib in his palace at Nineveh I have given them fully, in order that we may endeavour to identify the sculptured representations of these events on the walls of the cha, described in the course of this work

As the nas, countries and cities, are not written phonetically, that is, by letters having a certain alphabetic value, but byof them is a peculiar process, which may sometimes appear suspicious to those not acquainted with the subject, a feords of explanation reater number of assyrian proper names hich we are acquainted, whether royal or not, appear to have been made up of the name, epithet, or title, of one of the national deities, and of a second word, such as ”slave of,” ”servant of,” ”beloved of,” ”protected by;” like the ”Theodosius,” ”Theodorus,” &c of the Greeks, and the ”Abdullah,” and ”Abd-ur-Rah co is to knohich God this particular sign denotes Thus, in the name of Sennacherib, we have first the determinative of ”God,” to which no phonetic value is attached; whilst the second character denotes an assyrian God, whose name was San The first coram for the God assur It is this fact which renders it so difficult to deterree of confidence, most of the assyrian names, and which leads me to warn my readers that, with the exception of such as can with certainty be identified ell-known historic kings, as Sargon, Sennacherib, and Essarhaddon, the interpretation of all those which are found on the monuments of Nineveh, is liable to very considerable doubt In speaking of thes which have been suggested by different writers

Although no question can reasonably exist as to the identification of the king who built the palace of Kouyunjik with the Sennacherib of Scripture, it may still be desirable to place before my readers all the corroborative evidence connected with the subject In so doing, however, I shall have to refer to the discoveries ht consequently to be described, if the order of the narrative be strictly preserved, in a subsequent part of this work In the first place, itwas undoubtedly the son of the founder of the palace at Khorsabad He is so called in the inscriptions behind the bulls in the S W palace at Nimroud, and in numerous detached inscriptions on bricks, and on other remains from those ruins and froenerally adon, even before his relationshi+p to the Kouyunjik king was known; although here again we are obliged to attach phonetic powers to characters used asas simple letters, appear to have totally different values Colonel Rawlinson states, that this king bears in other inscriptions the name of Shalmaneser, by which he was better known to the Jews[58] Dr Hincks denies that the two na to the same person

Unfortunately the upper parts of nearly all the bas-reliefs at Kouyunjik having been destroyed the epigraphs are wanting; and we are unable, as yet, to identify with certainty the subject represented with any known event in the reign of Sennacherib There is, however, one re the latter part of my residence at Mosul a chamber was discovered in which the sculptures were in better preservation than any before found at Kouyunjik Soh cracked and otherwise injured by fire; and the epigraph, which fortunately explained the event portrayed, was coe and capture by the assyrians, of a city evidently of great extent and importance It appears to have been defended by double walls, with battlements and towers, and by fortified outworks The country around it was hilly and wooded, producing the fig and the vine The whole power of the great king seehold In no other sculptures were so ed city The besieged defended theers thronged the battle arrows, javelins, stones, and blazing torches upon the assailants Part of the city had, however, been taken

Beneath its walls were seen assyrian warriors iateway of an advanced tower, or fort, issued a procession of captives, reaching to the presence of the king, who, gorgeously arrayed, received theuished from the conquerors by their dress, those who defended the battle froed lappet falling over the ears So down to the shoulder, not unlike that worn by the modern Arabs of the Hedjaz Others had no head-dress, and short hair and beards Their gar to the ankles, or of a tunic scarcely falling lower than the thigh, and confined at the waist by a girdle The wo shi+rts, with an outer cloak thrown, like the veil ofto the feet

Several prisoners were already in the hands of the torturers Tere stretched naked upon the ground to be flayed alive, others were being slain by the sword before the throne of the king The haughtythe chiefs of the conquered nation, who crouched and knelt huht into the royal presence by the Tartan of the assyrian forces, probably the Rabshakeh hieneral was clothed in embroidered robes, and wore on his head a fillet adorned with rosettes and long tasseled bands

The throne of the king stood upon an elevated platform, probably an artificial mound, in the hill country Its arures one above the other The as richly carved, or encased in es ended in pine-shaped ornaments, probably of bronze The throne, indeed, appears to have resembled, in every respect, one discovered in the north-west palace at Nih back was thrown an embroidered cloth, doubtless of some rare and beautiful material

[Illustration: Sennacherib on his Throne before Lachish]

The royal feet rested upon a high footstool of elegant form, fashi+oned like the throne, and cased with es ended in lions'

paws Behind the king were two attendant eunuchs raising fans above his head, and holding the embroidered napkins

Theloose robes richly ornaht hand he raised two arrows, and his left rested upon a bow; an attitude, probably denoting triumph over his ene prisoners after a victory

Behind the king was the royal tent or pavilion: and beneath hi the parasol, the emblem of royalty His two chariots with their charioteers, aiting for his of the horses were handso with tassels, fell on their chests Two quivers, holding a bow, a hatchet, and arroere fixed to the side of the chariot

This fine series of bas-reliefs, occupying thirteen slabs, was finished by the ground-plan of a castle, or of a fortified ca tents and houses Within the walls was also seen a fire-altar with two beardless priests, wearing high conical caps, standing before it In front of the altar, on which burned the sacred fla various sacrificial objects, and beyond it two sacred chariots, such as accos in their wars[60] The horses had been taken out, and the yokes rested upon stands Each chariot carried a lofty pole sur tassels or streamers; si sacrifices[61] in the sculptures of Khorsabad

Above the head of the king was an inscription, whichof the country of assyria, sitting on the throne of judgment, before (or at the entrance of) the city of Lachish (Lakhisha) I give perhter”

Here, therefore, was the actual picture of the taking of Lachish, the city, as we know froenerals to demand tribute of Hezekiah, and which he had captured before their return[62]; evidence of the most remarkable character to confirm the interpretation of the inscriptions, and to identify the king who caused thehly interesting series of bas-reliefs contained, , a city, and a people, hose names we are acquainted, and of an event described in Holy Writ They furnish us, therefore, with illustrations of the Bible of very great inoly indicated in the sculptures, but they had been stripped of their ornaments and their fine raiment, and were left bare-footed and half-clothed From the women, too, had been removed ”the splendor of the foot ornaments and the caps of network, and the crescents; the ear-pendants, and the bracelets, and the thin veils; the head-dress, and the ornairdles, and the perfus and the jewels of the nose; the embroidered robes and the tunics, and the cloaks and the satchels; the transparent garments, and the fine linen vests, and the turbans and the irdle, a rope; and instead of a sto of sackcloth”[63]

Other corroborative evidence as to the identity of the king who built the palace of Kouyunjik with Sennacherib, is scarcely less ree, in the south-west corner of this edifice, were found a large nu the impressions of seals, which, there is no doubt, had been affixed, like modern official seals of wax, to documents written on leather, papyrus, or parchment Such documents, with seals in clay still attached, have been discovered in Egypt, and specis themselves had been consu or had perished from decay In the sta, or strips of skin, by which the seal was fastened; in so itself reers and thumb