Part 25 (2/2)

This chamber, like the one parallel to it, led at one end into a sn recorded in the adjoining chamber had been continued These rooms completed the discoveries on the southern side of the palace On the northern side of the same edifice, and on the river-face of the platforreat hall had been uncovered; the other walls had not been excavated at the time of my departure from Mosul Fro, and from the small accumulation of earth above the level of the foundations, it is doubtful whether any sculptures still exist in it The standing wall had three entrances, the centre fored lions, and the others by fish Gods Of the bas-reliefs only fragments now remained

In one set was depictured the conquest of another tribe dwelling in the marshes of southern Mesopotamia The assyrians pursued their enemies in wicker boats, such as I have described in my account of the Afaij Arabs; and on the islands forh the morass, were assyrian warriors on horseback

On the same side of the hall was represented the conquest of a second nation, whose ar to their feet The assyrians had plundered their te away their idols ”Of a truth, Lord, the kings of assyria have laid waste all the nations and their countries, and have cast their Gods into the fire; for they were no Gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them”[235] Unfortunately the bas-reliefs were so es could not be satisfactorily ascertained The figures appeared to be beardless, with the exception of one, which is that of aa mace

The three entrances led into one chamber 86 feet by 24 On its calcined walls were only the faint traces of bas-reliefs I could distinguish a line of chariots in a ravine betweenpile of wood, castles on the tops of hills, assyrians carrying away spoil, a on his throne receiving his army on their return from battle with the captives and booty

Opposite to and corresponding with the three entrances fro into a parallel chamber of somewhat smaller dimensions Parts of four slabs were the only sculptures sufficiently well preserved to be drawn: they represented the siege of a great city, whose ers, archers, and spear himself in his chariot was present at the attack Around him were his warriors and his led-horses

ThreeThey were on the very edge of the river-face of the mound The walls of the outer room had been aled figures, led from it into a second chamber, about 24 feet square, in which the sculptures were still partly preserved Ast the bas-reliefs was another battle in ain boats, and bringing their captives to the shore, one of the vessels being towed by aon an inflated skin Sennacherib hirove of palm-trees, received the prisoners, and the heads of the slain Above hiraph, which appears to read, ”Sennacherib, king of the country of assyria, the spoil of the river Agammi, from the city of Sakrina” (the last line not interpreted) Although the name of this city has not yet been found, as far as I know, in the records on the bulls and on other , yet the nise in the bas-reliefs a representation of part of the can, undertaken by Sennacherib, in the fourth year of his reign, against Susubira the Chaldaean: whose capital was Bittul, on the sah the river itself has not as yet been identified, it is evidently either a part of the Tigris or Euphrates, or one of their confluents, near the Persian Gulf We have no difficulty, indeed, in deter the site of the country whose conquest is depictured The marshes and palm-trees show that it must have been in southern Mesopotamia, or in the districts watered by the Shat el Arab

A great retinue of charioteers and horsee circular shi+elds were fixed to the sides of the chariots represented in the sculptures

The third chauarded by colossal eagle-footed figures, contained the sculptured records of the conquest of part of Babylonia, or of so lines of chariots, horse to their ar

The assyrians having taken the principal city of the invaded country, cut down the pal drums, such as are still seen in the sa their hands in cadence to their song, careet the conquerors Beneath the walls was represented a great caldron, which appears to have been supported uponthe brazen sea of the temple of Solomon[236]

Such were the discoveries in the ruined palace of Sennacherib at the tinificent edifice I had opened no less than seventy-one halls, chaes, whose walls, almost without an exception, had been panelled with slabs of sculptured alabaster recording the wars, the triuh calculation, about 9880 feet, or nearly two miles, of bas-reliefs, with twenty-seven portals, fored bulls and lion-sphinxes, were uncovered in that part alone of the building explored during th of the excavations was about 720 feet, the greatest breadth about 600 feet[237] The pavement of the chambers was from 20 to 35 feet below the surface of the mound

Only a part, however, of the palace has been explored, and round of this enormous structure Since my return to Europe other rooms and sculptures have been discovered

[Illustration: assyrian Pedestal, from Kouyunjik]

The excavations were not li the palace Deep trenches and tunnels were opened, and experimental shafts sunk in various parts of the ments of sculptured and unsculptured alabaster, inscribed bricks, numerous small objects, and various other remains, were discovered[238] To the north of the ruins on the sa upon a pavement of limestone slabs, were found four circular pedestals

They appeared to for froe of the platform to an entrance to the palace, and may have supported the wooden columns of a covered way, or have served as bases to an avenue of statues[239] The earth not having been sufficiently cleared away around them, I was unable to ascertain whether there was st the very few architectural reant, and is somewhat Saracenic in its character

I will now describe so s the excavations at Kouyunjik It must be borne in mind that the mound within which was the buried palace, was used more than once, and by more than one distinct people, for the site of a castle, if not of a town We know that Nineveh was utterly destroyed by the united armies of the Medes and Babylonians; yet we find Meherdates taking the castle of Ninos, and the same place is mentioned by several later authors[240]

Coins ofto the superscription, struck at Nineveh One bears the head of Trajan, and, on the reverse, the legend AUG FELI NINI CLAV (col), round an eagle with expanded wings between two military standards Another has on one side the head of the E an object reseend COL

NINIVA CLAVD It would appear from these coins that Claudius, who established many colonies in the East, was the founder of one called after his thus appear to have been erected at various tily find in the rubbish rest the relics occasionally brought to ems with inscriptions in the Pehlevi character, of the tis of Persia, that is, from the first half of the third to the seventh century after Christ Of the Roures and lahty-nine silver denarii of the Emperors Vespasian, titus, Domitian, Trajan, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, Co to the dates on the coins themselves, from A

D 74 to A D 201 Mr R Stuart Poole, of the British Museum,--to whom I am indebted for a list and description of these coins,--conjectures, with much probability, that they were buried by a Ro the second expedition undertaken by Severus against the Arabs of Mesopota the Parthian war, carried on by the same emperor

The number of coins of Commodus, and the fact that there are none of any emperor after Severus, lead to the belief that the hoard was buried about this time It is worthy of re been in circulation Unfortunately there are no coins ah theyto Eastern cities

Of the time of the Seleucidae and of the Greek occupation of assyria and Babylonia, we have several relics: ast them a small head of Hercules, with the eyes inlaid in ivory, one or two figures in terracotta, solass vessels, and various objects in pottery and bronze To this period I areat jars, and other sepulchral rehat, Kouyunjik, and in other assyrian mounds, which, whento a land, Mr Vice-consul Rassam has discovered at Kouyunjik several tombs built of slabs of stone, and apparently of even a later date, for in one of theold coin of the Emperor Maxi relics in the salass

It is re the most careful search, in all parts of the country around Mosul, I have been unable to find one undoubted assyrian tomb, nor can I conjecture hohere the people of Nineveh buried their dead The sepulchral chaes, are unquestionably of a coullies outside and between the inclosure walls of Kouyunjik have been exareatest care for traces of tombs, but in vain In the numerous isolated conical mounds scattered over the face of the country, I have detected nothing to show that they were places of sepulture It must, however, be confessed that they have not yet been sufficiently excavated Further experiments should be made in them, and tunnels opened into their very foundations The only assyrian sepulchre hitherto discovered is probably the vaulted chah mound of Nimroud, which may have once contained the remains of the royal builder of the north-west palace Did the assyrians, like the fire-worshi+ppers of Persia, expose their dead until nought remained but the bleached bones, or did they burn theiven to their customs in this matter by any bas-relief or monument hitherto discovered The assyrians appear to have avoided all allusions to their dead and to their funeral rites; unlike the Egyptians, who portrayed the ceremonies observed after death, and even the events of a future state, upon the walls of almost every temple and tomb

The only relics found at Kouyunjik which I can refer to the Achaemenian Persian period, are the remains of several dishes and vases in serpentine and yptian hieroglyphs, characteristic, according to Mr Birch, of the time of the Ptolemies

[Illustration: Part of Colossal Head, from Kouyunjik]