Part 8 (2/2)

Bavian is a mere Kurdish hamlet of five or six miserable huts on the left bank of the Ghazir We stopped at the larger village of Khinnis; the two being scarcely half a mile apart, the place is usually called ”Khinnis-Bavian” The Arab population ceases with the plains, the villages in the hills being inhabited by Kurds, and included in the district of Missouri Adjoining is the Yezidi district of Sheikhan

The rock-sculptures of Bavian are the most important that have yet been discovered in assyria[92] They are carved in relief on the side of a narrow, rocky ravine, on the right bank of the Go from the Missouri hills, and one of the principal feeders of the small river Ghazir, the ancient bumadus The Gomel or Goaave to the Macedonian conqueror the doh the battle-field was called after Arbela, a neighbouring city, we know that the river Zab intervened between theamela, on the banks of the bumadus or Ghazir, the Gomela of the Kurds It is remarkable that tradition has not preserved any record of the precise scene of an event which so materially affected the destinies of the East The history of this great battle is unknown to the present inhabitants of the country; nor does any local name, except perhaps that which I have pointed out, serve to connect it with these plains The battle-field was probably in the neighbourhood of Tel Aswad, or between it and the junction of the Ghazir with the Zab, on the direct line of march to the fords of that river We had undoubtedly crossed the very spot during our ride to Bavian

The whole of the country between the Makloub range and the Tigris is equally well suited to the operations of iven by the historians of Alexander, we are unable to identify the exact place of his victory It is curious that hitherto no reh which would serve to reat a battle as that of Arbela

The principal rock-tablet at Bavian contains four figures, sculptured in relief upon the s perpendicularly from the bed of the torrent They are inclosed by a kind of frah by 30 feet wide, and are protected by an overhanging cornice from the water which trickles down the face of the precipice Two deities, facing each other, are represented, as they frequently are onon h square head-dress, with horns uniting in front, peculiar to the human-headed bulls of the later assyrian palaces One holds in the left hand a kind of staff surmounted by the sacred tree To the centre of this staff is attached a ring encircling a figure, probably that of the king The other hand is stretched forth towards the opposite God, who carries a siht hand an object which is too ures reat tutelary deity of the assyrians, as the two kings who stand in act of adoration before the The monarch, thus doubly portrayed, is behind the God He raises one hand, and holds in the other the sacredin a ball His dress resembles that of the builder of the Kouyunjik palace, Sennacherib, hom the inscriptions I shall presently describe, identify hireatly from the effects of the ater be distinguished But they have been still more injured by those who occupied the country after the fall of the assyrian e no reverence for the records or sacred monuments of those ent before them, excavated in the ready-scarped rocks the sepulchral chareat tablet there are four such tombs I entered them by means of a rope lowered from above by a party of Kurds They were e before carried away, or destroyed

To the left of this great bas-relief, and nearer thea horseures Both horse and rider are of colossal proportions, and remarkable for the spirit of the outline The warrior wears the assyrian pointed hel ponderous spear, as in the act of charging the ene, and behind him a deity with a horned cap; above his head a row of s on animals of various forms, as in the rock-sculptures of Malthaiyah

This fine bas-relief has, unfortunately, suffered even more than the other monuments from the effects of the atmosphere, and would easily escape notice without an acquaintance with its position

Scattered over the cliff, on each side of the principal bas-reliefs, are eleven sh up on the face of the precipice, that they are scarcely seen from below One is on a level with the bed of the stream, and was, indeed, almost covered by the mud deposit of the floods Each arched recess, for they are cut into the rock, contains a figure of the king, as at the Nahr-el-Kelb, near Beyrout in Syria[94], 5 feet 6 inches high Above his head are the sacred syroup consists of three tiaras, like those worn by the Gods and human-headed bulls, and of a kind of altar on which stands a staff ending in the head of a ralobe; the third of a pedestal, on which are a trident and three staffs, one topped by a cone, another without orna in two bulls' heads turned in opposite directions; and the fourth of a Maltese cross (? symbolical of the sun) and the seven stars Some of these symbols have reference, it would seem, to the astral worshi+p of the assyrians; whilst others, probably, represent instru sacrifices, or sacred ceremonies

Across three of these royal tablets are inscriptions One can be reached froher sculptures, cannot be seen fro very nearly, word for word, the same, they can to some extent be restored

I was lowered by ropes to those on the face of the precipice, which are not otherwise accessible Standing on a ledge scarcely six inches wide, overlooking a giddy depth, and in a constrained and painful position, I had so them The stupidity and clumsiness, s before, rendered erous

The inscriptions, the longest of which contains sixty-three lines, are in many respects of considerable importance, and have been partly translated by Dr Hincks They coreat deities of assyria, the nah probably the whole thirteen are enumerated, as on the monuments from Nimroud Then follow the name and titles of Sennacherib Next there is an account of various great works for irrigation undertaken by this king

Frohteen canals to the Ussur or Khusur (?), in which he collected their waters He also dug a canal, from the borders of the town or district of Kisri to Nineveh, and brought these waters through it; he called it the canal of Sennacherib

A long obscure passage precedes a very detailed account of the expedition to Babylon and Kar-Duniyas against Merodach-baladan, recorded under the first year of the annals on the Kouyunjik bulls[95] Aftersome canals which he had made in the south of assyria, Sennacherib speaks of the ar of Elas of the hills and the plains ere their allies He defeated thehbourhood of Khalul (site undeter of Ela of Kar-Duniyas were either killed or taken prisoners, while the kings themselves fled to their respective countries Sennacherib then mentions his advance to Babylon, his conquest and plunder of it, and concludes with saying, that he brought back froes of the Gods which had been taken by _Merodach-adakhe_ (?), the king of Mesopotamia, from assyria 418 years before, and put them in their places

Now, the i it to be correctly interpreted, will at once be perceived, for it proves almost beyond a doubt, that at that remote period the assyrians kept an exact computation of tiical tables may be discovered, which will furnish us with minute and accurate information as to the precise epoch of the occurrence of various important events in assyrian history It is, indeed, remarkable that Sennacherib shouldaway of the assyrian Gods This very date enables us, as will hereafter be seen, to restore y, and to place, al whose position was before unknown

We find also that the greater part, if not the whole, of the rock-sculptures were executed either at the end of the first, or at the beginning of the second, year of the reign of Sennacherib As he particularly describes six tablets, it is probable that the others were added at some future period, and after some fresh victory When the whole inscription is restored, we shall probably obtainin the annals of Kouyunjik, and in the records of the same period

Beneath the sculptured tablets, and in the bed of the Goments of rock, which appear to have been torn frohty convulsion of nature into the torrent below The pent up waters eddy round theerous whirlpools, and when swollen by the winter rains sweep completely over them They still bear the remains of sculpture One has been broken by the fall into two pieces On the the lion between tinged hurand entrances of the palaces of Kouyunjik and Khorsabad Above this group is the king, worshi+pping between two deities, who stand on les, the bodies and fore feet of lions, and hind legs arht of the whole sculpture is 24 feet, that of the winged bull 8 ft 6 in

Near the entrance to the ravine the face of the cliff has been scraped for some yards to the level of the bed of the torrent A party of Kurds were hired to excavate at this spot, as well as in other parts of the narrow valley Res in well-hewn stone were discovered under the thick her up the gorge, on re the earth, I found a series of basins cut in the rock, and descending in steps to the streainally been led froh small conduits, the lowest of which was ornamented at its mouth with two rampant lions in relief These outlets were choked up, but we cleared the water into the upper basin restored the fountain as it had been in the time of the assyrians

From the nature and number of the monuments at Bavian, it would seeious ceres, whose remains still exist, were used for these purposes, the waters must have been pent up between quays or embankments They now occasionally spread over the botto no pathway at the foot of the lofty cliffs The re to Bavian from the city of Nineveh, may still be traced across the plain to the east of the Gebel Makloub

The place, fro shade even in the hottest day of surateful retreat, well suited to devotion and to holy rites The brawling stream almost fills the bed of the narrow ravine with its clear and li cliffs rise abruptly on each side, and above them tower the wooded declivities of the Kurdish hills As the valley opens into the plain, the sides of the limestone mountains are broken into a series of distinct strata, and reseh lands of central Asia The banks of the torrent are clothed with shrubs and dwarf trees, aay oleander, bending under the weight of its rosy blossoms

I remained two days at Bavian to copy the inscriptions, and to explore the assyrian re to visit the Yezidi chiefs, I took the road to Ain Sifni, passing through two large Kurdish villages, Atrush and O the entrance to the valley of Sheikh Adi to the right The district to the north-west of Khinnis is partly inhabited by a tribe professing peculiar religious tenets, and known by the nae and mysterious rites are, as usual, attributed to them, I suspect that they are sirated at some distant period from the Persian slopes of the mountains, and who still profess Sheeite doctrines

We passed the night in the village of Esseeyah, where Sheikh Nasr had recently built a dwelling-house I occupied the sae body of Yezidi Cawals, and was lulled to sleep by an interminable tale, about the prophet Mohammed and a stork, which, e had all lain down to rest, a Yezidi priest related with the sa day I hunted gazelles with Hussein Bey, and was his guest for the night at Baadri, returning nextto Mosul