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] passing 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 assyrian Mosul was still nine caravan hours distant, and we encaht at Hamaydat, where many of our friends caain within the walls of the town, our desert trip having been accomplished without any mishap or accident whatever
Suttu lest he should be too late to join the warriors of the Khorusseh, who had planned a grand _ghazou_ into Nedjd He urgedrenounced such evil habits, and other occupations keptthat I was not to be persuaded, and that the tith come for us to part, he embraced me, crammed the presents we had s, and,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 assYRIAN CAMPAIGN--DAGON, OR THE FISH-God--THE CHAMBERS OF RECORDS--INSCRIBED CLAY TABLETS--RETURN TO NIMROUD--EFFECTS OF THE FLOOD--DISCOVERIES--SMALL TEMPLE UNDER HIGH MOUND--THE EVIL SPIRIT--FISH-God--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 To discoveries, and I hastened to the ruins, crossing in a rude ferry-boat the river, noollen, by the spring rains, to more than double its usual size[138]
The earth had been coallery, 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 passage; an entrance, it would appear, into the palace froth 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 uard bore an object which I should not hesitate to identify with the pineapple, unless there were every reason to believe that the assyrians 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 syures in the assyrian sculptures, may be the same fruit, and not, as I have conjectured, that of a coniferous tree
The attendants who followed carried clusters of ripe dates and flat baskets of osier-work, filled with porapes They raised in one hand shs to drive away the flies Then caes, and dried locusts fastened on rods The locust has ever been an article of food in the East, and is still sold in theintroduced in this bas-relief ahly prized by the assyrians
The locust-bearers were followed by a ranates; then ca 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 passage were fourteen horses without trappings, each horse having a simple halter twisted round its lower jaw, by which it was led by a grooned with considerable truth and spirit
It is probable that the sculptures fore, but now entirely destroyed, represented the king receiving this double procession The passage -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 accumulated mass of earth and rubbish about forty feet thick
As the worker, excavate in this part of the ruins, they had returned to the cha a series of bas-reliefs representing the capture and sack of a large city in the allery on whose walls were depictured the various processes eures Froe, whose sculptured panels had been purposely destroyed It led into a great hall, which the work its western side, and then turning through a doorway, discovered a cha the line of wall, they entered a spacious apart one continuous subject The assyrian ar a broad river a 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 byon their shoulders his second chariot, which had a yoke orna the river they attacked the ene 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 n in some part of Armenia, and I am inclined to identify the river with the Euphrates, near whose head-waters, as we learn froed one of his most important wars
The slabs at the western end of this cha the enor 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 cha into separate apartments Each entrance was foron, or the fish-God Unfortunately the upper part of all these figures had been destroyed, but as the lower remained fro the whole, especially as the saate 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 hued tunic, and bore the two sacred emblems, the basket and the cone
We can scarcely hesitate to identify this mythic for 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 worshi+pped as a God 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 tion of the Philistines and of the inhabitants of the Phoenician coast orshi+pped, according to the united opinion of the Hebrew commentators on the Bible, under the sareat temple of the idol at Ashdod, and the statue fell a second tion 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 worshi+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 theathered theon their God, and to rejoice”[143] We also find a Beth-Dagon, or the house of Dagon, ast 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-Gods, led into two s 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 assyrian kings, as well as the archives of the empire
I have mentioned elsewhere[147] that the historical records and public documents of the assyrians were kept on tablets and cylinders of baked clay Many speciht to this country The importance of such relics will be readily understood They present, in a sreat ical series the events of eachis so minute, and the letters are so close one to another, that it requires considerable experience to separate and transcribe the appear to have been a depository in the palace of Nineveh for such docuht of a foot or more from the floor they were entirely filled with the in of the upper part of the building They were of different sizes; the largest tablets were flat, and htly convex, and so, with but one or two lines of writing The cuneiforularly sharp and well defined, but so ible without a lass These documents appear to be of various kinds Many are historical records of wars, and distant expeditions undertaken by the assyrians; some see, the son of Essarhaddon; others again, divided into parallel columns by horizontal lines, contain lists of the Gods, and probably a register of offerings made in their temples On one Dr Hincks has detected a table of the value of certain cuneiforns, according to variousthem; 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 assyrians kept a very accurate computation of tiical tables and so the year, and even the day
Many are sealed with seals, and al contracts or conveyances of land Others bear rolled iraved cylinders so frequently found in Babylonia and assyria, 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 accuratelyletters so enuity and experience On some tablets are found Phoenician, or cursive assyrian 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 assyria, and a vast number of thee collection of them is already deposited in the British Museum We cannot overrate their value They furnish us with the materials for the co the language and history of assyria, and for inquiring into the customs, sciences, and, we may perhaps even add, literature, of its people The documents that have thus been discovered at Nineveh probably exceed all that have yet been afforded by the ypt But years ether, and the inscriptions transcribed for the use of those who in England and elsewhere e in the study of the cuneiform character It is to be hoped that the Trustees of the British Museum will undertake the publication of documents of such importance to the history of the ancient world
The second entrance formed by the fish-Gods opened into a small chamber, whose sides had been lined with bas-reliefs; but there were no remains of inscriptions