Part 26 (1/2)
Of assyrian relics obtained fro are
A colossal beardless head in limestone, remarkable for the boldness of the style It is, probably, part of a lion-sphinx
Handles in the forures in relief, and bearing an inscription with the genealogy and titles of Essarhaddon
A gold ear-ring adorned with pearls, resest Arab women
A rude circular vessel in liures in relief of the assyrian Hercules struggling with the lion
Moulds for casting ear-rings and other ornaold and silver The forms upon them are all purely assyrian, as the lion-headed deity, the cone, the bull's head, and the sacred signs seen in the Niest mould is in limestone, the others in serpentine They are precisely such as are used to this day by Arab goldsmiths
Various copper instruments (one in the shape of a sickle), a key,[241] a comb, and other objects, such as the heads of spears and arrows, in iron; glass bottles, pottery, fragments of terracotta, and marble with inscriptions, and many other relics, all of which, with those above enu been desirous ofsome experiments in the mound on which stands the so-called toroup of ruins opposite Mosul, and is, like Kouyunjik, in the line of the inclosure walls Some have believed it to represent the real site of ancient Nineveh, Kouyunjik being the remains of a palace added to the city at a later period It was important, therefore, to ascertain the nature and probable date of the edifice covered by the mound The sanctity of the place prevented any attempt to excavate openly, and it was necessary to carry onthe suspicion of the Mussule has risen round thethe toround, thickly set with Mussul country bring their dead to this sacred spot, and to disturb a grave on Nebbi Yunus would cause a tureeable results The pretended tomb itself is in a dark inner room None but Mussulmans should be admitted within the holy precincts, but I have ood friend, Mullah Sultan, a guardian of the us, entirely concealed by a green cloth embroidered with sentences from the Koran, stands in the centre of an aparts and colored tassels, such as are seen in siratedlooks into the hall, where the true believers assemble for prayer A staircase leads into the holy chamber It is needless to repeat that the tradition which places the toe of Nebbi Yunus is inhabited by Turcos occupy a considerable space Hearing that the owner of one of the largest wished to round apartent, To them for him, on condition that I should have all the relics and sculptures discovered during the excavations By these means I was able to examine a small part of the mound
After a few days' labor, the workmen came to the walls of a chamber They were panelled with inscribed, but unsculptured, alabaster slabs The inscriptions y of Essarhaddon, such as were found on the bulls and sphinxes of the south-west palace at Niments of stone were also obtained from the ruins, but they all bore the sa, and no relics of an earlier period were discovered during my residence at Mosul in the land an inhabitant of the village, whilst digging the foundations of his house, uncovered a pair of colossal huures of the assyrian Hercules slaying the lion, similar to those in the Louvre He colish Vice-consul, who informed Mr Hodder, the artist sent out by the Trustees of the British Museu specimens were not visited and secured before others became acquainted with their existence, and endeavored to obtain possession of them The Turkish authorities, of course, settled the clai the sculptures for theretted These remains will, however, probably prove to be of the time of Essarhaddon
Three miles to the north of the inclosure of Kouyunjik, and on the bank of the Tigris, is a village called Shereef-Khan Near it are several h reat ruins of assyria, is distinguished, like those of Nimroud and Khorsabad, by a conical heap at one corner For some time excavations were carried on in this mound under my superintendence, and discoveries of interest were made in it At a small depth beneath the surface of the soil are the re The walls of the chambers are of sun-dried bricks, but several slabs of alabaster, and painted and inscribed bricks were found in the ruins A broad flight of alabaster steps appeared to connect an upper with a lower part of the edifice
The inscriptions upon the bricks contain the na read, ”Sargon, king of assyria, the city (or place) of the on I called it; a temple of the sunnear it I built” Other bricks mention a temple dedicated to Mars, or some other assyrian deity[243] There are several shbourhood, which have not been explored
At Nimroud the excavations had been al in the centre of thepart of the edifice previously discovered there The lower half of several colossal figures, a with lions and mythic animals, had been preserved
A few small objects of interest were discovered in different parts of the ruins, and some additional rooms were explored in the north-west and south-east palaces In none of them, however, were there sculptures, or even inscriptions, except such as were ist its ruins prove that it was built by the grandson of Essarhaddon, who must consequently have been one of the last of the assyrian kings
Several to vases, beads and ornae earthen jars from different parts of the mound, a number of small cups of peculiar shape from the ruins of the upper chaures in baked clay, were the principal relics found during the excavations at Nimroud
In the north-west palace was also discovered a duck, with its head turned upon its back, in greenstone, siraved in the first series of the Monuments of Nineveh These two objects are of considerable interest, as we learn from short inscriptions upon thehts of thirty mana, or half a Babylonian talent
They have been exah 40 lb 4 oz 4 dwt 4 gr and 39 lb 1 oz 1 dwt 6 gr The difference between the been broken off[244]
It ures in baked clay, inscribed with assyrian nuate, onyx, and other hard hts, probably parts of the talent or of the hly probable that the curious series of bronze lions discovered at Ni my first researches were used for a like purpose Since the coating of green rust has been removed from them, they are found in several instances to bear two short inscriptions, one in cuneiform characters with the name of Sennacherib, the other in Phoenician, or cursive Semetic letters, accompanied by parallel lines or notches cut in the bronze Dr Lepsius has recently published a bas-relief froold or silver, eights in the for on its back, precisely similar to those froraved cylinders or geland, for class of assyrian and Babylonian antiquities They vary in size, from about two inches to a quarter of an inch, and are either circular, or barrel-shaped, or slightly curved inwards They are usually of lapis-lazuli, rock-crystal, cornelian, aate, onyx, jasper, quartz, serpentine, sienite, oriental alabaster, green felspar, and haematite The work of considerable sharpness and delicacy, and that of others so coarse as scarcely to enable us to recognise the objects engraved upon theious or historical, usually the former, and on many are short inscriptions in the cuneifor to several distinct periods The most ancient hich I as who built the oldest edifices hitherto discovered at Nineveh The subjects are usually the king in his chariot discharging his arrows against a lion or wild bull, warriors in battle, the monarch or priests in adoration before the eed bulls and lions, and other mythic animals, accompanied by the common assyrian sylobe, the sacred tree, and the wedge or cuneatic element
The next in order of date are those of the ti the cylinder with the fish-God, and that which I believe to be the signet of Sennacherib himself, described in a previous part of this work[245] A very fine speciate, represents an assyrian Goddess, perhaps Astarte, or the Moon, surrounded by ten stars, with a dog seated before her In front of her is the moon's crescent, and a priest in an attitude of adoration A tree and a raroup On others of the sae we find the Gods represented under various for before thens peculiar to the period, and the usual mythic emblems
The pure Babylonian cylinders are more commonly found in European collections than the assyrian They are usually engraved with sacred figures, accompanied by a short inscription in the Babylonian cuneifor the names of the owner of the seal and of the divinity, under whose particular protection he had probably placed himself They are usually cut in a red iron ore or haematite, which appears to have been a favorite ate, jasper, and other hard substances
A class of cylinders of very rude workmanshi+p, and usually in haematite, are probably of the latest Babylonian period Upon theures of various deities, and especially of Venus, so froems, assyrian in character, are inscribed with Se the Phoenician and cursive Babylonian They are rare, and have chiefly been found, I believe, in ruins on the banks of the Euphrates to the north of Babylon, near Hit and Ana I would attribute them, therefore, to the Semetic population which inhabited the districts on the eastern borders of the Syrian desert They appear to belong to various periods, from the time of the lower assyrian dynasty (of which three fine specihdad) to that of the Persian occupation of Babylonia
Persian cylinders frequently bear an inscription in the cuneiform character peculiar to thespecireen chalcedony in the British Museu Darius in his chariot, with his nanet Another, in the same collection, bears the name of one Arsaces, who appears to have been a chamberlain, or to have held some other office in the Persian court A very fine cylinder in rock crystal, brought by me to this country, and now also in the British Museum, has the God Ored bulls with hu The engraving on this gem is remarkable for its delicacy and nised at once by the draperies of the figures, gathered up into folds, as in the sculptures of the Achaemenian dynasty, a peculiarity never found on pure assyrian or Babylonian ; by the form of the supre the sculptures on the walls of Persepolis
It has been conjectured that these cylinders were araved with a kind of horoscope of the owner, or with the figures of the deities ere supposed to preside over his nativity and fortunes But it is evident fronets to be impressed on clay and other materials on which public and private documents ritten Herodotus states that the Babylonians were accustonets constantly with them, as a modern Eastern always carries his seal[246]