A S S Y R ] -V N C 0 Li T 
 
THE 
 
 NINEVEH COURT 
 
 IN THE 
 
 CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 DESCRIBED BY 
 
 AUSTEN HENEY LAYAED. 
 
 CEYSTAL PALACE LIBEAEY 
 
 AND 
 
 BRADBURY & EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET, LONDON. 
 1854. 
 
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CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTKODTJOTION.7 
 
 THE ASSYKIAN OR ARROW-HEADED WRITINO. 3G 
 
 ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE . 39 
 
 DESCRIPTION OP THE NINEVEH COURT.52 
 
 THE EXTERIOR OR FA 5 ADE.55 
 
 CENTRAL HALL.57 
 
 GS 
 
 INNER CHAMBER 
 
Some of the Illustrations in this volume have been hindly lent by 
 Me. John Mureay and Mr. Herbert Ingram. 
 
NOTICE. 
 
 The Nineveli, or Assyrian Court in the Crystal Palace has 
 been erected from the designs and under the immediate super¬ 
 intendence of Mr. Pergusson—a gentleman who has especially 
 devoted himself to the study of Assyrian architecture, and has 
 spared no pains to examine and compare every fragment of 
 architectural ornament and detail, as well as every monument 
 which might throw light upon the subject, discovered during 
 the researches of M. Botta and the Author in Assyria, and to 
 consult all the authorities on the question in this country and 
 Prance. He has been ably seconded by Mr. Collman, of Curzon 
 Street, who has applied himself most diligently and successfully 
 to the investigation of the peculiar mode of colouring and 
 ornamentation used by the ancient Assyrians, and has, to a 
 remarkable degree, entered into the spirit of their style of 
 artistic treatment. The colossal Bulls, at some of the entrances, 
 and the Bull-capitals and columns from Persepolis, have been 
 modelled by Mr. Harper from the originals and from careful 
 drawings. 
 
 The thanks of the Crystal Palace Company are especially 
 due to the Prench government, for its liberality in granting 
 full permission to their agents to take casts from the Assyrian 
 
vi 
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 sculptures preserved in the Louvre, and to examine the 
 drawings and plans of discoveries recently made at Khorsabad, 
 sent to France by M. Place, French consul at Mosul. 
 
 The Company are equally indebted to the Trustees of the 
 British Museum for the casts of numerous Assyrian bas- 
 reliefs in the national collection. 
 
 Before describing the Nineveh Court, it has been thought 
 advisable to give a slight sketch of the recent researches and 
 discoveries among the ruins of Nineveh, to serve as an intro¬ 
 duction to the examination of the various sculptures and 
 monuments which it contains. 
 
THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Six hundred years before Christ Nineveh ceased to be a city, 
 and Assyria an empire. Cyaxares, at the head of a vast army of 
 Babylonians and Persians captured Nineveh after a short siege, 
 destroyed its walls and palaces, and left it what it has remained to 
 this day, a heap of ruins. The Ass3rrians, after the destruction of 
 their capital, became subjects of the King of Babylon, and appear 
 no more in history as an independent people. 
 
 As the great historians of Greece had not been bom before the 
 Assyrian empire had perished, no trustworthy account of it is to 
 be found in profane history ; but the Greeks preserved many 
 traditions concerning its power and extent, and traced to it much 
 of their civilisation and rehgion, as well as many of their arts. 
 It is, however, in the Bible that we have the most distinct and 
 authentic notices of the state of Assyria. The Jews and the 
 Assyrians were kindred people. They spoke nearly the same 
 language, they clauued the same descent, and, as recent discoveries 
 have shown, there was a considerable resemblance in their political 
 condition. The dominions, too, of the Kings of Assyria bordered 
 on those of the Jewish monarchs, and there was constantly war 
 between them. Indeed, there is good reason for believing tliat for 
 several hundred years the Jews were actually tributaries to the 
 Assyrians. It was, no doubt, chiefly on account of this intunate 
 connection, that the Jews were so frequently in danger of being 
 cormpted by the superstitions and idolatrous worship of their 
 neighbours, a tendency which drew forth the most emphatic 
 warnings and denunciations of the prophets. The Kings of 
 Nineveh, and their successors in the Empire of the East—the Kings 
 of Babylon-—were also repeatedly declared to be the instruments 
 
8 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 by whicli the Almighty would punisb. the transgressions of tlie 
 Jews, wlio were ultimately to be led away captive by those 
 monarchs, and to expiate their sins in miserable bondage. It was 
 soon after the division of the twelve tribes into the two distinct 
 monarchies of Judah and Israel, under Hehoboam and Jeroboam, 
 nearly 1000 years b.o., that the wars between the Assyrians and 
 Jews appear to have commenced, or, at least, it is then that those 
 wars are first mentioned in the Bible ; for the Jews, now weakened 
 by their internal dissensions, offered an easy conquest to thek 
 ambitious and powerful neighbours. 
 
 The first Assyrian king, whose name is mentioned in Scripture, 
 was Pul. He came against Samaria when Menaliem reigned over 
 Israel, and Azariah over Judah (about 770 b.c.), and having exacted 
 a heavy tribute of 1000 talents of silver from the Israelites, 
 returned to Assyria (2 Kings, xv. 19). Tiglath-Pileser, who 
 appears to have been his successor, after having carried away 
 captive the tribe of Kaphthah in the reign of Pekah, became the 
 ally of Ahaz against the Syrians, and received in return from the 
 King of Samaria, “the silver and gold that were found in the 
 House of the Lord and in the treasury in the King’s House.” 
 (2 Kings, xvi. 8.) The next Assyrian royal names which occur in 
 the Bible are Sargon and Shalmaneser (Isaiah xx. and 2 Kings, 
 xviii.), believed by some to belong to the same king. Shalmaneser 
 destroyed Samaria, and leading away captive the remainder of the 
 ten tribes, placed them “ in Halah and Habor, by the rivers of 
 Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.” Thus ended the king¬ 
 dom of Israel. Sennacherib, the successor of Sargon, made war 
 upon Hezekiah, King of Judah, took Lachish and many of his 
 principal cities, and exacted so large a tribute, that the Jewish 
 monarch was compelled to cut off the gold from the doors and 
 pillars of the temple. (2 Kings, xviii. 16.) At a subsequent 
 period, however, the Assyrian army was destroyed by a pestilence, 
 sent by God to punish the pride and arrogance of Sennacherib, who, 
 on his return to Kineveh, was murdered by his two sons as he was 
 worshipping in the House of Kisroch, his god. Esarhaddon, his son, 
 who succeeded liim, is the last Assyrian king mentioned in the 
 Bible. Under one of his immediate successors Nineveh must have 
 perished. Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews carried into 
 captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, after the Assyrian Empire had been 
 absorbed into that of Babylon. 
 
 It is this close intercourse, during several centuries, between the 
 Jews and the Assyrians, the signal part whicli the kings of Nineveh 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 9 
 
 were destined to perform in the fulfilment of prophecy, and the 
 ultimate destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser 
 or Sargon, wliich render the recent discoveries among the ruins 
 on the banks of the Tigris of such vast interest and importance, 
 especially when those discoveries, as we shall shortly show, most 
 completely corroborate the events recorded in the Bible, and 
 illustrate to a remarkable extent the connexion between those 
 two nations both in manners and language. 
 
 The Bible describes what recent discoveries fully confirm, the 
 extent and power of the Assjn-ian empire, the pride and magnificence 
 of its kings, its vast armies, composed of footmen, horsemen, and 
 chariots, and the skill, enterprise, and wealth of its inhabitants. 
 Nineveh, we are told in the book of Jonah, was a great city of 
 no less than three days’ journey in extent—meaning probably in 
 circuit—containing more than six-score thousand persons who 
 could not discern their right hand from their left hand, a descrip¬ 
 tion which has been variously applied to young children and to 
 ignorant persons, but v/hich, however applicable, conveys a 
 striking illustration of the vast population of tliis mighty capital. 
 The traditions preserved by the Greeks are no less full and precise 
 as to its riches and splendour ; and the dimensions they assign 
 to it, correspond with the three days’ journey of the Bible, and 
 with the space actually occupied by its ruins. 
 
 These dimensions, far exceeding those of any modern capital, 
 would seem to be too vast for a city, were it not remembered that it 
 included gardens and fields, and was made up of several distinct 
 walled quarters, distant from one another and divided by cultivated 
 lands. The peculiar customs which have at all times prevailed in the 
 East, especially with regard to polygamy and the seclusion of women, 
 render a much larger space necessary for a dwelling than in the 
 West, and more than one family rarely inhabit the same house. 
 Such is the case in the modern capitals of Isfahan and Damascus ; 
 although they occupy as much ground as London or Paris, they 
 do not contain a tithe of the population. Ancient writers tell us 
 that in the event of a siege, Nineveh and Babylon could supply 
 from the arable land within their walls abundant supplies for their 
 inhabitants. It is, however, doubtful whether the whole of tliis 
 vast area was enclosed by one great wall ; it would appear from 
 existing remains that each quarter only was so fortified and 
 protected. 
 
 So completely had this great city disappeared, that Xenophon, 
 who marched over its site with the ten thousand Greeks, about 250 
 
10 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 years after its destruction, does not even record its name, and 
 merely alludes to a few isolated ruins. The very position of 
 Nineveh had, in subsequent ages, become a matter of doubt, and 
 might have remained so but for those discoveries which have 
 recently brought to light some of its ruins. 
 
 This entire disappearance of Nineveh, whilst the other great 
 capitals of the ancient world had left some visible traces of their 
 principal monuments, by which their site could be determined, is 
 chiefly to be attributed to the materials of which it was constructed. 
 The Assyrians did not, like the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, 
 build their palaces and temples either of granite, precious marbles, 
 or durable stone, but even their public edifices, as well as their 
 humblest habitations, were of bricks made of clay mixed with 
 chopped straw, and merely dried in the sun. Without the 
 chopped straw the clay would not have been bound together, or have 
 had sufficient consistency for use ; hence the meaning of the passage 
 in the book of Exodus (chap. v. 7.) which describes the hardships of 
 the Jews when the Egyptians refused to supply them with straw to 
 make their bricks. Other materials, such as marble, alabaster, 
 stone, and kihi-bumt bricks, generally painted or glazed, were 
 used by the Assyrians in their principal edifices, but to a com¬ 
 paratively limited extent, and only by way of ornament. Hence, 
 when the buildings were once deserted, the upper walls and stories 
 soon fell in and buried the lower. The bricks of clay became earth 
 again, and the ruins would assume the appearance of mere 
 natural heaps and mounds rising in the plain, upon which the 
 grass grew and corn might be sown. And such have been the 
 ruins of Nineveh for more than two thousand years. 
 
 On the left, or eastern bank, of the river Tigris, about 250 
 miles to the north of Baghdad and opposite to the modern town of 
 Mosul, rise a number of these mounds. Some are of great size, 
 and upon them the Arabs have built villages and have cultivated 
 the soil. Others stretch out in long parallel lines, marking the site 
 of walls and fortifications. The present inhabitants of the country, 
 although not the descendants of the ancient, still preserve a few 
 traditions which point to these remains as the ruins of Nineveh. 
 Upon one of the most considerable stands a building, which is 
 supposed to cover the tomb of the Prophet Jonah, who is believed 
 by orientals to have died where he prophesied, Another is called 
 Nimroud, or Nimrod, and an adjoining elevation Asshur, or Athur. 
 The late Mr. Rich, the British resident or pohtical agent at Baghdad, 
 a gentleman distinguished for his acquirements and his acquaintance 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 11 
 
 witli tlie languages and antiquities of tlie East, was tlie first to call 
 attention to these very remarkable remains. During a visit to 
 Mosul, in the year 1820, he had an opportunity of carefully 
 examining the mounds opposite that town. He found among the 
 rubbish scattered around them, fragments of marble and bricks 
 bearing traces of inscriptions in the peculiar character called the 
 arrow-headed, or cuneiform. He learnt, too, from the Arabs, that 
 large slabs of marble covered with sculptured figures of men and 
 animals had occasionally been dug out of the ruins. Mr. Rich 
 consequently inferred that these heaps of earth must cover the 
 remains of vast edifices. Many years, however, elapsed before 
 they were more completely examined, and the nature of their 
 contents ascertained. 
 
 M. Botta, French Consul at Mdsul, first undertook, in 1842, 
 regular excavations in the ruins, commencing with a great mound 
 called Kouyunjik, rising on the banks of the Tigris, opposite to 
 the town. He worked for some time without success, until he 
 was guided by a peasant to the village of Khorsabad, built upon 
 one of these artificial elevations about fourteen miles from the 
 river. Sculptured stones were said to have been found there by 
 the Arabs when digging the foundations of their houses. M. Botta 
 immediately sunk wells into the mound and soon discovered 
 several slabs, seven or eight feet high, of a kind of gray alabaster, 
 or gypsum, carved with human figures in relief. They proved to be 
 part of the panelling or casing of a wall built of sun-dried bricks. 
 Others succeeded, and M. Botta ere long found that he was in a 
 chamber forming part of an edifice which had been buried at some 
 remote period. Carefully removing the earth, he at length came 
 to a doorway leading into a second apartment; similar discoveries 
 followed, and, in the space of a few months, a large number of 
 halls and chambers were completely explored, belonging to a 
 magnificent edifice whose walls were all panelled with sculptured 
 slabs, and whose entrances and facades were ornamented with 
 monstrous forms carved partly in full, and partly in high relief. 
 These extraordinary figures, which appeared to guard the inner 
 recesses of the palace, were of colossal size, and united the head 
 of a man with the body of a bull and the wings of a bird. 
 Similar monsters had been discovered among the ruins of the 
 celebrated city of Persepolis, the ancient capital of Persia. Tliey 
 were singularly grand and imposing in form, and thus dug as it 
 were out of the bowels of the earth, had a very striking and 
 solemn appearance, The sculptures on the walls, cut in low relief, 
 
12 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 represented various scenes from the public and private life of the 
 Assyrians—^battles, sieges, banquets, processions, &c., and here 
 and there colossal figures of priests and deities. There were no 
 traces of the upper part and roof of the edifice ; as they had been 
 principally constructed of wood and other perishable materials, 
 they had entirely disappeared. Only the lo wer part or basement, 
 consisting of thick walls of sun-dried bricks, panelled with the slabs 
 of alabaster, had resisted the ravages of time. 
 
 The art displayed in the sculptures, although rude and primitive, 
 was distinguished by considerable truth of outline and elegance of 
 detail. It has now taken its place amongst other styles of ancient 
 art, and is easily recognised by its peculiar characteristics, especially 
 in the treatment of the human form, marked by the strong 
 development of the limbs and muscles, in the nature of its 
 ornamentation frequently marked by considerable grace and 
 beauty, and in the conventional mode of pourtraying natural 
 objects, such as mountains, trees, rivers, <fec. Traces of colour 
 were found upon nearly all the bas-reliefs, thus showing that 
 the Assyrians, like other ancient nations, painted their sculptures 
 and the architectural ornaments of their buildings. 
 
 During his researches at Khorsabad, M. Botta was in constant 
 communication with the Author, who, as far back as the spring of 
 1840, had visited the ruins of ISTineveh, and had formed the plan 
 of opening the principal mounds. It was not, however, until 1845, 
 that he was able to carry out, by the assistance of Lord Stratford 
 de Bedclilfe, then Sir Stratford Canning, his long-cherished design. 
 In the autumn of that year he returned to Mosul. The jealousy 
 which the Turkish authorities and the inhabitants of the country 
 had shown of M. Botta’s excavations,—carried on, as they believed, 
 for the purpose of discovering buried treasures, or for some 
 mysterious object connected with designs upon the territories of 
 the Sultan, attributed to Europeans,—rendered it necessary to com¬ 
 mence operations with great caution. The mound of INimroud was 
 consequently selected for examination as being the farthest removed 
 from Mosul, as well as being the most important and inte¬ 
 resting in this part of Assyria. At that time the country around 
 the ruins had been left a desert, and was only occasionally visited 
 by bands of A rab horsemen in search of plunder. 
 
 It was on the 8th of INovember that the Author left Mosul for 
 Nimroud, floatmg down the river Tigris on a raft formed of 
 inflated skins. He was accompanied by an English gentle¬ 
 man, Mr. Ross. In a few hom-s he reached the ruins. The 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 13 
 
 periodical rains not having yet commenced, the vast monnd was 
 still an arid, yellow heap, rising in the midst of a great plain 
 equally devoid of verdure ; no remains of building, not even a 
 trace of masonry, were visible. The enormous platform, or terrace, 
 seemed a natural elevation ; and, had it not been for the fragments 
 of brick and pottery, some inscribed with arrow-headed characters, 
 scattered on its surface, there would have been no signs to lead 
 to the conjecture that edifices had once stood on its summit. 
 The moimd was nearly a parallelogram, in length about 1800 
 feet, in breadth 900, and at the north-west angle rose a high cone, 
 which has been called the ‘‘ pyramid.” The river Tigris once watered 
 its western base, but had long deserted its ancient bed, now 
 flowing at the distance of nearly a mile and a half from the ruins. 
 
 Tlie great Mound of Nimroud. 
 
 The mode of carrying on the excavations at Nimroud, and their 
 results having been fully described in a work published by the 
 Author on his return to this country after Ms first expedition to 
 Assyria,* it will be siifficient to give a very slight sketch of the 
 nature of the discoveries made by Mm in the ruins. The first 
 successful researches were undertaken in the south-west corner of 
 the mound, where a wall, panelled as at Khorsabad with inscribed 
 slabs, was almost immediately uncovered. The edifice to which it 
 belonged had evidently been destroyed by fire, its rums were 
 buried in charred wood, and the alabaster was almost reduced to 
 lime. Some days elapsed before more perfect remains were dis¬ 
 covered. At length an entire slab, sculptured with a -winged figure 
 in low relief, was dug out of the north-west corner of the mound, 
 and a few days after the colossal human head, which formed the 
 
 * See “Nineveh and its Remains,” and the Abridgment by the Author. 
 
14 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 first great discovery at Nimroud, was uncovered. The sudden 
 appearance of this strange object caused great excitement amongst 
 the Arabs and the inhabitants of M6sul, who believed it to be the 
 head of one of their prophets, or of some evil spirit, and led to the 
 temporary suspension of the excavations. K’ot long after, however, 
 
 Discovery of the Colossal Head. 
 
 they were renewed under the authority of an imperial firman, and 
 have since been carried on without any other interruption ; the 
 Sultan having generously permitted the Author to explore all the 
 ruins in this part of his dominions, and to remove any monuments 
 that might be discovered to this country. 
 
 The human head proved to be part of one of those emblematic 
 figures already described as having been found in the ruins of 
 Khorsabad, except that the body was that of a Hon instead of 
 a bull. There were some differences too in the details. The 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 15 
 
 homed cap, that peculiar head-dress always given to sacred figures 
 on the Assyrian monuments, was round instead of square, and 
 this distinction is now 
 known to mark the 
 earliest Nineveh remains. 
 
 In the Nineveh Court in 
 the Crystal Palace this 
 turban-like head - dress 
 Avill be observed in the 
 lions forming the door¬ 
 way on the west side of 
 the central hall (the head 
 of the one to the right 
 being a cast from that first 
 discovered at Nimroud), 
 which differ in this respect 
 from the winged bulls of 
 the fagade and principal entrance. 
 
 A second human-headed lion was soon after discovered, the two 
 forming a portal into a grand hall, 154 feet in length, and 33 in 
 breadth, in which were three other entrances similarly ornamented. 
 The walls of this magnificent apartment had been entirely 
 panelled with alabaster slabs, which, with one or two excep¬ 
 tions, were carved with elaborate bas-reliefs, representing battles, 
 sieges, and hunting scenes, divided into two compartments, an 
 upper and a lower, by a band of inscriptions. Unfortunately, one 
 side of this hall had been almost entirely destroyed, and it was 
 only from the fragments scattered amongst the rubbish that the 
 nature of the sculptures, which once adorned it, could be ascer¬ 
 tained. The opposite wall was still preserved almost entire, although 
 many of the slabs had fallen from their places upon the pavement. 
 Nearly the whole series of these sculptures has been placed in the 
 British Museum, and casts from them siuround the inner chamber 
 of the Nineveh Court. 
 
 The entrances formed by the winged bulls and lions led into further 
 chambers, from which doorways opened into other parts of the 
 building ; one apartment having been discovered, the excavators 
 had only to follow the walls to penetrate into others. After some 
 mcmths’ labour five and twenty halls and chambers were explored, all 
 panelled with slabs of alabaster—some sculptured with figures, 
 others merely inscribed with a short record in the arrow-headed 
 character, containing the name, titles, and principal events of the 
 
16 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 reign of the royal founder, repeated on ahnost every stone used in the 
 edifice, and now known as “ the standard inscription of Nimroud.” 
 
 The workmen employed by the Author were chiefly Arabs, and 
 Nestorian Chaldseans. Soon after the excavations had been com¬ 
 menced, the tribes which usually inhabit the plain around the ruins 
 returned to their pastures. By entering into friendly relations 
 with the chiefs, and humouring the peculiar prejudices and 
 customs of their followers, an efifective body of Arabs was soon 
 collected together. They usually brought their black tents, with 
 their wives and children to the mound itself, and there encamped 
 whilst the excavations were in progress. They were chiefly 
 employed in removing the earth from the ruins in baskets, no 
 other mode of proceeding being known in the country. The more 
 arduous labour of digging away the rubbish, which on account of its 
 hardness and consistency, could only be efiected with iron picks, 
 was assigned to the INestorian Chaldseans of the mountains, a hardy 
 and industrious race of Christians, with whom the Author had 
 opened communications, and who came down from their villages to 
 earn a scanty subsistence after they had been plundered of all their 
 property by the Kurds. 
 
 The sculptured and inscribed walls, forming the lower part of the 
 ancient edifices, were buried beneath a vast heap of rubbish, 
 the remains of the upper stories and roofs, and of fine soil which,, 
 had been for ages accumulating above the ruins. In some places 
 this mass of earth rose fifteen or twenty feet above the slabs. 
 The surface of the platform or mound was nearly flat. Upon it the 
 Arabs, and probably those who inhabited the country before 
 them, had sown corn for centuries, little thinking that their rude 
 ploughs were passing over the sculptured halls of palaces, once the 
 marvel of the Eastern world. Even tombs which must have held their 
 dead before the birth of Christ, and some which contained vases and 
 ornaments of Greek and Roman origin, were found above the Assyrian 
 edifices. Had the ruins been completely explored, an immense 
 quantity of earth must have been removed. In order, therefore, to 
 save labour and much needless expense, the sides only of the 
 chambers, ornamented with the panelling of sculptured or inscribed 
 slabs, were uncovered, the centre being left unexamined and filled 
 with rubbish. Thus the excavations had the appearance of a 
 number of narrow galleries, open to the sky above, formed on one 
 side by bas-reliefs and inscribed slabs, and on the other by a 
 wall of earth mingled with bricks, decayed wood, and pottery. 
 When the i^alace had been thus partially explored, a selection 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 17 
 
 was made of the most interesting and best preserved sculptures 
 to be sent to England for the British Museum, and the smaller 
 lion and bull now in the national collection, with the slabs 
 of which casts have been placed in the Mneveh Court, were taken 
 from the ruins. From the size and weight of these objects, and 
 the entire absence of any mechanical contrivances in the country, 
 considerable difficulty was experienced in moving them. A rude 
 cart was at length constructed, and, with the assistance of a large 
 number of Arabs, the two principal sculptures, the bidl and lion, 
 were lowered from their erect position at the entrances which they 
 
 Rafts upon tlie Tigris. 
 
 guarded, and "were dragged to the water’s edge. They were theix 
 placed upon rafts made of inflated skins bound together, and 
 
18 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 floored with beams and planks of wood. Upon these primitive 
 vessels they floated down the river Tigris to Busrah (Balsora), 
 where they were shipped for England. * 
 
 On the Author’s return to Assyria in 1849, further excavations 
 were undertaken in the north-west corner of the Nimroud mound. 
 Many new chambers were discovered belonging to the palace 
 already partly explored, but their walls were not panelled with 
 sculptured slabs, being simply plastered and painted with various 
 ornamental designs and groups of figures. In one of these apart¬ 
 ments, which appears to have been the royal treasury or store-house, 
 was found an interesting collection of bronzes and other objects, con¬ 
 sisting of plates, bowls and cups, elaborately embossed and engraved 
 with a variety of elegant patterns, and with figm:es of men and 
 animals ; of many large copper cauldrons ; of arms, such as arrows, 
 swords, spear-heads and shields ; of the remains of a throne 
 made of ivory and precious wood, encased with plates of copper 
 embossed with various figures and designs, corresponding exactly 
 with the representation of the royal seat in the bas-reliefs, and 
 upon which Shalmaneser or Sennacherib himself may have sat ; of 
 several elephant’s tusks of considerable size ; of parts of altars and 
 tripods in bronze ; of glass bowls, and of a variety of ornaments in 
 ivory, mother of pearl, glass, enamel and copper. These, with 
 one beautiful glass vase, and two of alabaster, bearing the name and 
 title of Sargon, the Assyrian king mentioned by the Prophet 
 Isaiah ; the remams of helmets and armour ; tablets of ivory and 
 figures in the same material, most delicately and elaborately carved, 
 and enamelled bricks of many colours and designs, were amongst 
 the most remarkable objects discovered in the north-west palace 
 diming the excavations. They are now mostly in the British 
 Museum. 
 
 In addition to this palace it was found that two small temples 
 occupied the northern extremity of the j)latform of Nimroud, 
 built by the same king, and forming, as it were, part of the same 
 edifice. The most remarkable was one adjoining the base of the 
 conical mound or pyramid—apparently dedicated to the Assyrian 
 Hercules. Its principal gateway was guarded by a pair of gigantic 
 human-headed Lions. An adjoining entrance was formed by sculp¬ 
 tured slabs, some of which are now in the British Museum, repre¬ 
 senting the Deity—to whom probably the temple was dedicated 
 
 * The process of lowering and raising these colossal figures has been fully 
 described in the work published by the Author. 
 
THE ASSYKIAN HERCULES DRIVING OUT THE EVIL SPIRIT. 
 
20 
 
 THE NINEVEH COUET. 
 
 —driving out with a thunderbolt the Evil Spirit, pourtrayed with a 
 monstrous head and extended jaws, the body of a lion, the talons of 
 an eagle, and the wings and tail of a bird. Adjoining these 
 
 sculptures was the figure of a 
 man, with the head and body 
 of a fish forming a kind of 
 head-dress and upper garment. 
 This singular image is believed 
 to represent the god Dagon of 
 the Philistines, frequently men¬ 
 tioned in the Bible, and before 
 whose alta,r the people of Gaza 
 were “ gathered together for to 
 offer a great sacrifice and to 
 rejoice,” when Samson bowed 
 himself with all his might ’* 
 against the pillars and bmied 
 the lords and the people beneath 
 the ruins of the temple (Judges 
 xvi. 23). It was this idol, too, 
 which fell upon its face to the 
 ground before the ark of the 
 Lord at Ashdod, when the head 
 and both palms of the hands 
 were cut off, and only the fishy 
 part (according to the reading 
 in the margin) was left (1 Sam. 
 V. 4). At this same entrance 
 was also discovered a fine block 
 of yellowish limestone with the 
 figure of the royal founder of 
 the north-west palace in high 
 relief, and inscribed on the four 
 sides with arrow-headed writing ; before it stood a tripod or altar, 
 showing that the king had been deified. Both are now in the 
 British Museum, 
 
 In this temple were found several enormous slabs of alabaster, 
 covered on both sides with cuneiform writing, each forming the 
 entire pavement of one room. The largest was no less than 21 
 feet by 16^ feet, and upon it were inscribed in 325 lines, the 
 annals of a king who lived nearly a thousand years before Christ. 
 These records, which contain the most curious historical and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 21 
 
 geograpliical details, and throw a new light upon the political 
 condition and manners of the ancient Assyrians, have been trans¬ 
 lated by Dr. Hincks, and will, it is hoped, be shortly published.^" 
 
 The second temple, opposite to that just described, and stand¬ 
 ing on the northern edge of the mound, was chiefly remarkable 
 for an entrance formed by a pair of colossal lions, sculptured with 
 singular spirit and boldness. One of them is now in the British 
 Museum. 
 
 Excavations in the liigh conical mound led to the discovery 
 that it was the remains of an enormous square tower, which must 
 
 Pyramidal Mound, Nimroud. 
 
 have been at least 200 feet high, and probably much more. It was 
 built of sun-dried bricks, faced to the height of twenty feet with 
 
 * For a notice of the contents of these inscriptions see “ Nineveh and Babylon,” 
 p. 352. 
 
22 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 solid masonry of stone, and above witb. burnt bricks. In the 
 interior was found a narrow vaulted gallery, 100 feet long, 12 
 high, and 6 broad. It was empty, having probably been broken 
 into and plundered at some remote period. It appears to have 
 been a place of royal sepulture, and there are grounds for believing 
 that the building covered by this mound is the tomb of Sardanapalus, 
 so frequently alluded to by ancient writers, as existing in their day 
 at Nineveh. 
 
 Whilst these discoveries were being made in the north-west 
 palace, excavations were at the same time carried on in other 
 parts of the great mound of Nimroud. In its centre were found 
 the remains of a second edifice, which has been called the “ centre 
 palace,” and which appears to have been founded by one king, and 
 completed or added to by a second. It had suffered far more 
 
 The Obelisk iu Black Marble. 
 
 and the greater part of the bas-reliefs were heaped together 
 as if ready to be moved to some other building. Remains of 
 human-headed bulls and Uons still stood at the entrances, and 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 23 
 
 upon them were inscriptions of the highest interest ; but the most 
 remarkable discovery in these ruins was that of the black obelisk 
 now in the British Museum. This very important monument is 
 sculptured with twenty bas-reliefs representing the king of Assyria 
 receiving the tribute of several conquered nations, consisting of 
 various wild animals, vases of precious metal, rare woods, 
 and other costly objects, and is inscribed with 210 lines of arrow- 
 headed writing, being the royal annals for thirty-one years. 
 Amongst the names of the monarchs who acknowledged the supre¬ 
 macy of the king of Assyria, are those of Jehu, king of Samaria, and 
 Hazael, whom Elijah anointed king of Syria, which gives to this 
 monument the utmost value, and enables us to fix its date at 
 about 885 b.c. The whole inscription was first translated and 
 published by Col. Bawlinson—the name of Jehu was discovered by 
 Dr. Hincks. This king is called the son of Omri,” of whom, how¬ 
 ever, the Bible tells us he was only the successor—“ son of” being 
 frequently used in this sense in eastern phraseology. ^ Samaria is, 
 also, called ‘Hhe house of Omri,” by whom we know the city to 
 have been founded ; another common mode of eastern designation. 
 
 The next important discovery at Nimroud was that of the south¬ 
 west palace, which had been ornamented with sculptures evidently 
 taken from several other buildings ; some from the north-west 
 palace, and others from the centre. The human-headed bulls and lions 
 however, wliich stood at the entrances, bore the name of Esar- 
 haddon, the son of Sennacherib, who appears to have founded the 
 edifice. Several inscriptions of great interest and value have been 
 found amongst these ruins, but unfortunately few of them are 
 entire ; the inscribed and sculptured slabs having been sawn or 
 mutilated to fit them into the walls. They contain the records of 
 Pul and Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian kings mentioned in the Bible, 
 and in one of them Dr. Hincks first detected, amongst the names 
 of other tributary monarchs, that of Menahem, king of Israel. 
 
 A fourth palace was discovered in the south-east corner of the 
 mound, but no sculptured or inscribed slabs appear to have adorned 
 its walls, which were simply panelled to the height of about four feet 
 with common stone, and plastered and painted above. The king 
 who founded this building, and whose name is inscribed upon 
 bricks from its ruins, was the grandson of Esarhaddon, and 
 appears to have been nearly the last, or perhaps the last king of 
 Assyria. [^But an obelisk or detached monument, with a bas-relief of 
 
 * Thus in the Bible Jehu is called both “ the son of Nimshi,” and “ the son 
 of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi.” 
 
24 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 an earlier Assyrian king, and a very long inscription containing his 
 annals, has recently been found by Mr, Rassam in this edifice. 
 
 During the latter part of the Author’s first residence at ISTineveh, 
 the remains of a palace had been discovered in the great mound 
 of Kouyunjik, opposite Mosul. The ruins were buried beneath 
 an immense accumulation of earth and rubbish, and were only 
 reached by trenches, in some instances, more than thirty feet 
 deep. Wliilst the principal edifices at ISTimroud, except the south¬ 
 west palace, were uninjured by fire ; that at Kouyunjik had 
 been evidently exposed, like Khorsabad, to a terrible conflagration. 
 The alabaster slabs were reduced to lime, and in many places 
 had entirely disappeared. The chambers were filled with charcoal, 
 and other undoubted evidence of the great fire which must 
 have destroyed the building. It was not, however, until the 
 Author’s return to Assyria in 1849, that these ruins were fully 
 explored. They were found to be those of a magnificent j)alace 
 built by Sennacherib, the son of Sargon, the king who made war 
 against Hezekiah. Each apartment was panelled with sculptured 
 slabs, representing a distinct subject, so that each chamber was a 
 separate historical record. In one were pourtrayed the wars of the 
 king in a mountainous region, in another a campaign in a plain 
 wooded with palm trees, in a third an expedition against a people 
 inhabiting vast marshes, and in a fourth the siege of cities stand¬ 
 ing on a great river. 
 
 But amongst the most remarkable of the bas-reliefs were two 
 series representing the various processes employed by the Assyrians 
 in moving the colossal figures forming the entrances to their 
 palaces, and in raising the great mounds upon which the royal 
 edifices were built. We have first the stone in the rough brought 
 down the river Tigris on a boat towed by several hundred men— 
 next, the slab having been landed and carved into a human¬ 
 headed buU, is moved on a kind of sledge to the foot of the 
 mound ; and lastly, the colossus is dragged by gangs of workmen 
 to the summit of the platform prepared to receive it. We shall 
 again allude to these series of sculptures when we describe the 
 architecture of the Assyrian palaces. The entrances at Kouyunjik, 
 as in the edifices previously described, were formed by human¬ 
 headed bulls and lions, and by colossal winged figures of Assyrian 
 gods. Amongst the latter the eagle-headed deity, Dagon or the 
 fish god, a hon-headed man, and various other monstrous forms 
 continually occurred. 
 
 The bas-reliefs in Sennacherib’s palace differed somewhat from 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 25 
 
 those hitherto discovered. They were from eight to nine feet high, 
 and were mostly covered from top to bottom with very small figures, 
 and minute, though rude, representations of the natural features of 
 the country in wliich the events recorded took place. INo descrip¬ 
 tive inscriptions, except occasionally a few words with the name 
 of the city or king pourtrayed, accompanied these sculptures. The 
 annals of the royal founder were, however, engraved at great length 
 ui)on the numerous colossal man-bulls which formed the entrances 
 and facades of the building. Several chambers appear to have 
 contained the public archives or records, and amongst the earth and 
 rubbish with which they were filled was discovered an immense 
 number of tablets of baked clay of various sizes, covered with 
 inscriptions in the most minute arrow-headed characters. With 
 them was also found a large collection of pieces of clay impressed 
 with seals once appended to documents—probably rolls of leather 
 or of papyrus—the marks of the string being still visible. 
 Amongst these lumps of clay were two of great importance. Upon 
 each was the impression of two seals; one that of a king of Assyria, 
 the other that of a king of Eg57pt. The name of the Egyptian 
 monarch in hieroglyphics is recognised by Egj^tian scholars as that 
 of Sabaco II., the Ethiopian, of the twenty-fifth dynasty, believed 
 to be identical with So, who received ambassadors from Hoshea, 
 king of Israel (2 Kings xvii. 4), and was the immediate prede¬ 
 cessor of Tirhakah, who came against Sennacherib. These 
 seals were probably appended to a treaty between the kings 
 of Assyria and Egypt, and the fact of the Eg 5 rptian seal being 
 that of a monarch who reigned at the very time at which the palace 
 of Kouyunjik, long before this discovery, was conjectured to have 
 been built, is a most remarkable corroborative proof of the correct¬ 
 ness of the interpretation of the cuneiform inscriptions. 
 
 The palace of Sennacherib at Kouyunjik is the most vast and mag¬ 
 nificent building hitherto discovered on the site of Nineveh. Although 
 only partly explored during the Author’s residence in Assyria, some 
 idea may be formed of its great extent and of the richness and 
 variety of its decorations, when it is mentioned, that no less 
 than seventy-one halls, chambers, and passages were explored, whose 
 walls, almost without an exception, were panelled with slabs of 
 sculptured alabaster, recording the wars, the triumphs, and other 
 great deeds of the Assyrian king ; that by a rough calculation 
 about 9880 feet, or nearly two miles of bas-reliefs, with twenty- 
 seven portals formed by colossal vdnged bulls and lion-sphinxes, 
 were uncovered,” and that the area of the ruins excavated was 720 
 
26 
 
 THE NINEVEH COUET. 
 
 feet by 600.'^ The accumulation of rubbish above the sculptures was 
 so considerable, and at the same time of such extraordinary hard¬ 
 ness and consistency, that it was found necessary to tunnel along 
 the walls instead of digging trenches down to the ruins as at 
 Nfimroud. The excavations consisted, therefore, of a perfect 
 labyrinth of subterranean passages, lighted by wells sunk from the 
 surface of the mound. It would be difficult to convey any idea of 
 the pecuharly solemn appearance of these underground galleries. 
 The colossal human-headed monsters scarcely emerging from the dim 
 light ; the long lines of bas-reliefs recording the ancient glories of 
 Assyria ; the Arabs wandering to and fro through the gloomy 
 passages, formed a picture which the imagination could scarcely 
 realise, and which once seen could never be forgot. 
 
 In addition to the great palace, one of the city gates was also 
 explored, and was found to consist of two human-headed bulls and 
 two colossal winged figures, between wliich the armies of Sennacherib 
 went out to war, and returned with their captives and spoil. From 
 recent discoveries at Khorsabad, it is probable that this gateway 
 was arched. The Author was also able to examine the mound upon 
 winch stands the pretended tomb of the Prophet Jonah, and which 
 had previously been inaccessible to Europeans. He estabhshed the 
 existence of the remains of a palace beneath the tomb and 
 village, and upon some inscribed slabs panelling a chamber he 
 found the name of Esarhaddon. At a subsequent period, a pair of 
 colossi, similar to those forming the entrances to the Assyrian 
 palaces previously explored, was discovered by a Turcoman when 
 digging the foundations of his house. The Turkish authorities then 
 commenced excavations, which were not continued, it is believed, 
 for any length of time, and did not produce any very important 
 results. 
 
 Since the Author’s return to England the excavations at Kouyunjik 
 and Himroud have been carried on for the Trustees of the British 
 Museum, under the superintendence of Mr. Hormuzd Bassam, to 
 whose activity and intelligence many of the most important results 
 of the expeditions to Assyria are to be attributed, and who was the 
 companion and indefatigable assistant of the Author during the whole 
 time of his residence at ISTineveh. From the accounts at various times 
 received in this country, it appears that this gentleman has made 
 many very interesting and remarkable discoveries. At ^Nimroud the 
 remains of an obelisk, similar to that now in the British Museum, 
 
 * “Nineveh and Babylon,” p. 589. 
 
INTEODUOTION. 
 
 27 
 
 and numerous inscriptions, have been found among the ruins of the 
 centre palace ; at Kouyunjik two or three obelisks, an entire statue, 
 and a large number of inscribed tablets have been added to the 
 collection of detached objects. But the most important discovery in 
 that great mound consists of many new halls and chambers panelled 
 with bas-reliefs, in far better preservation than anything yet found. 
 Whether these apartments belong to a second palace, or whether 
 they form part of that founded by Sennacherib, does not yet appear 
 to be determined. They were built during the reign of the grandson 
 of that monarch, who, we know, added to the great edifice raised 
 by his grandfather ; six slabs, now in the British Museum, of the 
 same period having been brought from that building. 
 
 The newly discovered bas-reliefs are described as remarkable for 
 the spirit of the design, and the exceeding minuteness of the details. 
 They probably resemble, in this respect, the bas-reliefs above alluded 
 to of the same king now in the national collection, and are of the 
 same style of art. Although at tliis period the Assyrian sculptor 
 sought to pourtray with greater exactness and in fuller detail 
 than had before been attempted, the scenes which he endeavoured to 
 represent, yet in a true feeling for art the monuments of this epoch 
 undoubtedly show a very marked decline. The bas-reliefs from 
 Khorsabad and Kouyunjik bear the same relation to the sculptures of 
 the north-west palace of Kimroud, as the later monuments of 
 Egypt do to the earlier. It is at Kimroud alone we find that 
 grandeur and severity of style displayed in the colossal lion now in 
 the British Museum, and that variety and elegance in the details 
 so remarkable in the sculptures of which casts are placed in the 
 central hall of the Nineveh Court, which were evidently the 
 origin of some of the ornaments of classic Greece. Any one 
 acquainted with the various characteristics of Assyrian art will, at 
 once, detect the period of a bas-relief by its style, and although the 
 artists employed by Sennacherib and his successors aimed at greater 
 effect and exactness they never reached the simple grandeur of the 
 earlier monuments. 
 
 Amongst the most interesting bas-reliefs discovered by Mr. 
 Bassam in the new chambers at Kouyunjik is one series representing 
 the king hunting lions in a royal park, or paradise ; another a 
 campaign against the Arabs, who are mounted on dromedaries ; 
 and a third, a palace with all its architectural details, and a bridge 
 •with pointed arches. The most important of these sculptures have 
 been secured for the British Museum, and will, it is hoped, be 
 shortly placed in the national collection. 
 
28 
 
 THE NINEYEH COURT. 
 
 Careful transcripts and casts in paper of tlie inscriptions discovered 
 at ISrimroud and Kouyunjik, with a large collection of inscribed 
 terra-cotta cylinders and tablets were brought to this country. The 
 examination to which they have been subjected has produced 
 results which could have been scarcely expected, and the importance 
 and interest of which it would be impossible to exaggerate. As far 
 back as 1849, Dr. Hincks had read the name of Sennacherib as that 
 of the king who founded the great palace at Kouyunjik, and had 
 consequently identified the names of his father and his son with 
 Sargon and Esarhaddon. Col. Kawlinson, in August, 1851, 
 announced that he had fuidher discovered in an inscription from 
 those ruins, the name of Hezekiah, King of Judah, and a distinct 
 record of the expedition of Sennacherib against Jerusalem, mentioned 
 in the Books of Kings and Chronicles. Through the assistance of 
 Dr. Hincks and of Col. Rawlinson’s translations, the Author was 
 shortly after able to publish the substance of this most important 
 inscription, part of which v/e will here transcribe. These royal 
 records or chronicles, like most of those hitherto discovered in 
 Assyria, are divided into annals, the events of each year being 
 classed together. In the first year of his reign, the inscription 
 declares, Sennacherib turned his arms against the nations who 
 inhabited the country to the south of Assyria, and whose king 
 was Merodach Baladan, a name familar to us as that of the 
 Babylonish monarch to whose ambassadors Hezekiah in his pride 
 showed “ the house of his precious things, the silver and the gold, 
 and the spices and the precious ointment, and all the house of his 
 armour, and all that was found in his treasures ” (Isaiah xxxix.). 
 Having subdued this king, Sennacherib made war upon several 
 tribes who appear to have dwelt in the mountains to the north of 
 Nineveh, the modern Armenia and Kurdistan. It was not until the 
 tMrd year of his reign that he crossed the Euphrates, and entered 
 Syria, whose inhabitants are called by their well-known Bibhcal 
 name of Hittites. And now comes the really important portion of 
 his annals. He soon discomfited the King of T 3 iTe and Sidon, who 
 is called Luhya, and who is mentioned by Josephus as Elulaeus, 
 undoubtedly a Greek form of the same name. Other kings of the 
 sea-coast, except the King of Ascalon submitted at once to the 
 Assyrians. This king was, however, at length defeated, and sent 
 j)risoner to Nineveh. A passage of great importance which next 
 occurs is unfortunately so much injured that it has not yet been 
 satisfactorily restored. It appears to state that the chief priests 
 and people of Ekron had cletlironed their king Padiya, who was 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 29 
 
 dependent upon Assyria, and had delivered liim up to Hezekiah, 
 King of Judah. The king of Egypt sent an army, the main part 
 of which is said to have belonged to the king of -Ethiopia (as 
 stated in the Bible), to Judtea, probably to help his Jewish 
 allies, Sennacherib joined battle with the Egyptians, and totally 
 defeated them near a city the name of wliich has not yet been 
 decyphered, capturing the charioteers of the king of ^tliiopia, and 
 placing them in confinement. This battle between the armies of 
 the Assyrians and Egyptians appears to be hinted at in Isaiah 
 (xxxvii.) and 2 Kings (xix. 9). Padiya having been brought back 
 from Jerusalem, was replaced by Sennacherib on his throne. 
 ‘‘ Hezekiah, King of Judah,” says the Assyrian king, the very 
 words of whose record we now quote, “ who had not submitted to 
 my authority, forty-six of his principal cities and fortresses, and 
 villages depending upon them of which I took no account, I 
 captured and carried away their spoil. I shut up himself within 
 Jerusalem, his capital city. The fortified towns and the rest of his 
 towns which I spoiled, I severed from liis country, and gave to the 
 kings of Ascalon, Ekron, and Gaza, so as to make his country 
 weak. In addition to the former tribute imposed upon these 
 countries, I added a tribute, the natuTe of which I fixed.” The 
 next passage is somewhat defaced, but the substance of it appears 
 to be, that Sennacherib took from Hezekiah the treasure he had 
 collected in Jerusalem, 30 talents of gold and 800 talents of silver, 
 the treasures of his palace, besides his sons and his daughters and 
 his male and female servants, or slaves, and brought them all to 
 Nineveh. The city itself, however, he does not pretend to have 
 taken. * 
 
 In the eighteenth chapter of the Second Book of Kings we have 
 an account of this campaign of Sennacherib, agreeing with singular 
 precision with the Assyrian records—Now, in the fourteenth 
 year of King Hezekiah, did Sennacherib, King of Assyria, come 
 up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them. And 
 Hezekiah, King of Judah, sent to the King of Assyria to Lachish, 
 saying, I have offended ; return from me : that which thou 
 puttest upon me will I bear. And the Eniig of Assyria appointed 
 unto Hezekiah, King of Judah, three himclred talents of silver, 
 and thirty talents of gold, and Hezekiah gave him all the silver 
 that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasures of 
 the King’s house.” 
 
 See “Nineveh and Babylon,” p 143. 
 
30 
 
 THE NINEVEH COUNT. 
 
 It will be perceived that the amount of tribute in gold paid 
 by Hezekiah, thu’ty talents, agrees in both records. It is possible 
 that the difference in the silver may be accounted for by supposing 
 that Hezekiah added the silver ornaments of the temple and royal 
 treasury to the number of talents assigned to him, and that in the 
 Assyrian records we have a statement of the gross amount. 
 
 It would appear from the Biblical account of the wars between 
 Sennacherib and Hezekiah, that the Assyrian king undertook two 
 distinct expeditions against the Jew^s; in the first he was successful, 
 in the second his army was destroyed by the plague. Sennacherib 
 
 reigned, according to his annals, many years after these events, 
 and we are not told by the Bible that he was slain immediately 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 31 
 
 after his return to Nineveh. The expression is general, and merely 
 affirms that he was afterwards murdered by his sons. It cannot 
 be expected that Sennacherib should have related his own defeat 
 in his public records. 
 
 Each warlike expedition undertaken by Sennacherib was probably 
 commemorated by bas-rehefs on the walls of his palace, each 
 chamber, as we have already observed, being devoted to one event. 
 We have little difficulty in recognising the representations of his 
 campaigns against the people of Chaldsea and Babylonia, inhabiting 
 a country watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, abounding in vast 
 marshes formed by the overflowing of those great rivers, and 
 wooded with pahn trees. The mountainous regions, with their 
 castles and hill forts, and their forests, are no less distinctly 
 pourtrayed. In some instances, a few lines of cuneiform inscrip¬ 
 tion accompany these representations, and contain the names of 
 the captured cities and of their chiefs. It might be expected, 
 therefore, that a sculptured record should be found of the war 
 with the Jews ; and in a bas-relief representing the siege of a great 
 city, built amongst wooded hills and surrounded by fig-trees, 
 pomegranates, and vines, we find the king himself seated upon his 
 throne, receiving the captives and spoil taken in battle : above his 
 head is an inscription in four hues, which reads, “Sennacherib, 
 the mighty king, king of the country of Assyria, sitting on the 
 throne of judgment, before the city of Lachish. I give permission 
 for its slaughter.” 
 
 Here, then, we have an actual representation of an event 
 recorded in the Bible, for it was during the siege of Lacliish, 
 which afterwards surrendered, that Sennacherib “ sent Tartan, and 
 Rabsaris, and Bab-shakeh with a great host against Jerusalem,” 
 (2 Kings xviii. 17). The captives brought before the king, and 
 the warriors defending the walls of the besieged city, as pourtrayed 
 in the sculptures, are consequently the Jews themselves. The 
 wooded hills, vineyards, and orchards represent the hilly country 
 of Judah, in one of the vallies of which Lachish appears to 
 have been situated. This most interesting series of bas-reliefs, 
 although much injured by fire, will shortly arrive in this country 
 and will be placed among the other Assyrian remains in the 
 British Museum. 
 
 It has frequently been remarked, that there is a complete 
 absence of either cotemj)orary evidence or of subsequent records 
 to corroborate the historical parts of the Bible, and that it is 
 scarcely possible that such great wars and campaigns, as are 
 
32 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 described in the Books of Kings and Chronicles could have 
 occurred without some notice having been taken of them by 
 ancient writers. Such an objection, of whatever value it might 
 have been, is now completely removed by the discoveries we have 
 described ; the testimony of those who actually took a part in the 
 events described in Holy Writ, who had no interest whatever in 
 distorting them, and who recorded them almost within a few days 
 of the time when they occurred, can now be produced to confirm 
 the truth and accuracy of the Biblical relation. The simple and 
 unexaggerated tone in wliich the Assyrian records are written, 
 so different from that generally adopted by Eastern nations, and 
 the great minuteness of the details, to the very number of the 
 captives, cattle, and various objects of spoil taken during the several 
 campaigns, give a singular truthfulness to the narrative. 
 
 But these are not the only discoveries illustrative of sacred and 
 profane history, and of the manners and condition of the ancient 
 Assyrians which have been made since the inscriptions have been 
 examined in England. The names of more than thirty Assyrian 
 and Babylonian kings have been recovered ; the earliest j)robably 
 reigned nearly 2200 years before Christ, and the last at the 
 time of the fall of Kineveh. Of some of these kings we have the 
 fullest annals. Amongst the earliest and most complete hitherto 
 discovered are those of Tiglath-Pileser I., who must have lived 
 between eleven and tv/elve hundred years before Clndst. Cylinders 
 of terra-cotta, one inscribed with no less than eight hundred lines 
 of cuneiform writing containing the records of this monarch, 
 have been dug up at Kalah Sherghat, a great Assyrian ruin on the 
 Tigris, some miles to the south of Kimroud. Amongst other events 
 which occurred during his reign, they commemorate the restora¬ 
 tion of a temple which had been pulled down some sixty years 
 before, and six hundred and forty-one years after its original 
 foundation, thus carrying back the Assyrian monarchy to nearly 
 1850 years before Clmst, and proofing that, even at that remote 
 date, the Assyrians possessed an accurate system of chronology. 
 The records of the founder of the north-west palace, perhaps the 
 most powerful and warlike of the Assyrian monarchs, have been 
 recently translated by Dr. Hincks, and are next in importance for 
 their antiquity as well as the most remarkable for their complete¬ 
 ness. They contain very curious geographical details of the 
 countries conquered by tliis monarch, including the names of 
 tribes, cities, mountains and rivers, with the amount of captives 
 and plunder carried away from each people ; giving us an accurate 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 33 
 
 picture of tlie political condition, and of the mode of warfare of 
 the Assyrians a thousand years before Christ, and affording a 
 number of highly interesting illustrations of the customs of 
 the Jews. The records of his son are scarcely less full and inte¬ 
 resting. They contain, as has been already observed, the names 
 of Jehu, King of Israel, and Hazael, King of Syria. The annals 
 of a king who was second or tliird in succession to the builder of 
 the centre palace at ISTimroud have been recently discovered, and a 
 translation of a portion of them has been sent to this country by 
 Col. Rawlinson. The next monarch of whom we have any de¬ 
 tailed records is one whose name according to Colonel Kawlinson 
 reads Phal-lukha, supposed to be the Pul of Scripture and 
 the Belochus of profane history. Col. Rawlinson has recently 
 stated that on a statue of the god Nebo, discovered in the ruins 
 of the south-east palace at ISTimroud, he has found an inscription 
 containing the name of the wife and queen of this monarch, who 
 was no other than the celebrated Semiramis of the Greeks, the 
 supposed conqueror of Asia, and the greatest heroine of ancient 
 history. Of Tiglath-Pileser II,, his successor, the Assyrian king 
 mentioned in the Bible, and who. Col. Rawlinson conjectures, 
 was the founder of a new dynasty, we have also important 
 chronicles ; in them we find mention of Menahem, King of Israel. 
 The ruins of Khorsabad furnish us with the most complete annals of 
 Sargon, the inscriptions having been published by the French 
 government. We have already fully noticed the annals of Seima- 
 cherib from Kouyunjik. In addition to inscriptions on the walls of 
 the palace, we have several historical cylinders and terra-cotta tablets 
 of the time of this king. Dr. Hincks has prepared a translation of all 
 these important records, which will, it is hoped, be soon published. 
 The same learned scholar has recently announced that on the 
 fragment of a cylinder containing the annals of Esarhaddon, he 
 has detected the names of Manasseh, King of Judah, and of the 
 cities of Edom, Gaza, Ascalon, Ekron, Gubal, and Ashdod. 
 
 In the inscriptions belonging to the son of Esarhaddon, we 
 find, amongst other important events of his reign, an account of a 
 campaign against the people of Susiana, or Elam, and a represen¬ 
 tation of the celebrated capital of that country, the Shushan of 
 the prophet Daniel, is supposed to exist in one of the bas-reliefs 
 now in the British Museum. 
 
 It would exceed om: Ihnits to describe the many other important 
 discoveries in chronology, philology, and ancient geography which 
 the inscriptions hitherto brought from Nineveh have furnished, 
 
 D 
 
.34 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 or to i^oiiit out tlie various ways in which the Assyrian monuments 
 illustrate and corroborate the Biblical records. TheAuthor has already 
 published a list of fifty-six names of kings, countries, and cities, 
 mentioned in the Old Testament, which occur in the Assyrian 
 inscriptions,* and, since the publication of his work, many others 
 have been added. The greater part of the enormous mass of mate¬ 
 rials deposited in the British Museum yet remains to be examined. 
 It is impossible to foretell what these inscriptions may yield to the 
 patient investigation of scholars, but it may confidently be predicted 
 that, should the present researches amongst the ruins of Nineveh 
 be continued on the scale that their importance demands, in a very 
 few years a complete history of Assyria, of which hitherto only a 
 few isolated facts have been known from scattered notices in 
 the Bible, or from vague and uncertain tradition, will be added 
 to that of the ancient world, t That which has hitherto been 
 discovered is sufficient to excite the deepest interest in every 
 reflecting mmd, and to render the attempt to restore an Assyrian 
 building, in which monuments and records of such vast importance 
 were contained, one of not the least attractive undertakmgs of the 
 enlightened projectors of the series of architectural illustrations of 
 ancient history and art in the Crystal Palace. 
 
 We will now, for the sake of easy reference, recapitulate the 
 palaces hitherto discovered, in the order of their respective dates, 
 and, as far as we are able, with the names of their founders. 
 
 The North-ivest Palace, Nimroud, built by a king who is sup¬ 
 posed to have reigned about 900 years b. His name may read 
 Asshur-akh-pal, which is believed to be identical with the Sarda- 
 napalus of the Greeks, several Assyrian monarchs having borne 
 this name. In the inscriptions found in this edifice and in the 
 adjoining temples of the same period are mentioned several kings 
 of Assyria, one of whom appears to have lived about 1200 b.c. 
 
 The Centre Palace, Nimroud, founded by the son of Asshur- 
 
 * See ‘‘Nineveh and Babylon,” p. 626. 
 
 + A society has recently been formed under the name of ‘ ‘ The Assyrian Ex¬ 
 cavation Fund,” supported by subscriptions and donations, for the prosecution 
 of the researches and excavations in Assyria and Babylonia, with a view to the 
 ultimate presentation of any monuments discovered to the nation. Mr. Loftus, 
 already knoAvn for Ifis discoveries at Susa, is now engaged for the Society in 
 examining various ruins in the south of hlesopotamia and on the site of 
 Nineveh, and it is hoped that the Society will not be prevented by the want of 
 adequate pecuniary means from carrying on researches which promise to be of 
 such vast importance in the elucidation of both sacred and profane history, and 
 in the illustration of prophecy. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 35 
 
 akh-pal, whose name has been read Shalmann-bar or Divanubar. 
 He was cotemporary with Jehn, King of Israel, who, according to 
 the inscriptions on his monuments, was his tributary. He must 
 therefore have reigned about 885 years b.c. This palace appears 
 to have been rebuilt or repaired by Pul or by Tiglath-Pileser, two 
 Assyrian kings mentioned in the Bible, as the name of Menahem, 
 King of Israel, occurs in an inscription brought from the ruins. 
 
 Kalah-Sherghat, the remains of an edifice built by the founder of 
 the Centre Palace at Kimroud. NTo sculptured walls have yet 
 been discovered in these ruins; but the bricks and a sitting 
 statue (now in the British Museum) brought from them, bear the 
 name of tliis king. Kalah-Sherghat, however, appears to have 
 been a very ancient Assyrian site, and terra-cotta cylinders have been 
 found there belonging to Tiglath-Pileser I., who reigned 1200 b.c. 
 
 The Upper Chambers, Nimroud. A small edifice added on to 
 the JNorth-west Palace by a successor of the founder of the Centre 
 Palace, whose name, according to Col. Rawlinson, reads Shamas- 
 phal, and who reigned about 800 years b.c. In these ruins were 
 discovered two inscribed slabs with an important list of royal names. 
 
 Khorsahdd, a palace at the north-east corner of Nineveh, founded 
 by Shalmaneser or Sargon, and probably built chiefly by the 
 latter, about 720 b.c. Inscriptions have been found in this 
 edifice which appear to describe the wars against Samaria and the 
 captivity of the ten tribes. 
 
 Kouyunjik, a vast and magnificent palace, built by Sennacherib, 
 the son of Sargon, on the banks of the Tigris, at the north-west 
 corner of Nineveh, about 700 years b.c. 
 
 The South-ivest Palace, Nimroud, built by Esarhaddon, who 
 was the son of Sennacherib, as we know from the Bible. Few of 
 the sculptures in this edifice were actually executed under the 
 direction of tliis king, who appears to have despoiled the palaces 
 built by his predecessors on the same platform, to decorate his own. 
 
 A Palace in the mound of the Tomb of Jonah, supposed to have 
 been built by the same king ; inscribed slabs and bricks with his 
 name having been discovered in the ruins. 
 
 Kouyunjik, a second palace, or an addition to that of Sennacherib, 
 built by the son of Esarhaddon, whose name may perhaps be read 
 Asshur-bani-pal, about 650 b.c. 
 
 South-east Palace, Nimroud, an edifice unadorned by sculpture 
 and of little extent or splendour, erected by the grandson of 
 Esarhaddon. This is the most recent building hitherto discovered 
 in Assyria, and its foimder was perhaps the last of the royal dynasty; 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 THE 
 
 AlSfe;YIiIAN OE AEEOW-HEADED WEITINa. 
 
 As we have thus described the results of the discoveries at 
 Nineveh, a few words are necessary to explain the process which has 
 led to the deciphering of the letters or characters used by the ancient 
 Assyrians, and called from their peculiar shape the arrow-headed or 
 cuneiform (wedge-shaped). It must be premised that a similar 
 mode of writing, differing only in the combination of the arrow¬ 
 heads or wedges, wliich form the letters, prevailed at one period in 
 Persia, as well as in Assyria and Babylonia. It is mainly to this 
 fiict that we owe the successful solution of tins very difficult 
 problem. The Kings of Persia, like those who preceded them in 
 the dominion of the east, were accustomed to engrave the records 
 of their reign on stone, and they frequently chose for that purpose 
 the face of some great rock or lofty precipice by the side of a much 
 frequented road. As their subjects consisted of three great nations, 
 the Persians, the Scythians, and the Assyrians or Babylonians, who 
 may be compared with the modern Persians, Turks, and Arabs, it 
 was necessary that, to be generally understood, these records should 
 be written in the three different languages spoken by those races, 
 and they were accordingly divided into three parallel columns, 
 each containing the same inscription, but in a different tongue. 
 Fortunately, the Persian column furnished the means of compa¬ 
 ratively easy decipherment; the number of letters was limited to 
 about forty, whilst the Assyrians had above tliree hundred distinct 
 characters ; each word was separated by a peculiar sign, and the 
 language nearly resembled the Sanscrit and other languages with 
 wliich scholars are acquainted. A learned German, Professor 
 Grotefend, was the first to obtain a clue to the value of the letters. 
 By an ingenious train of reasoning, he discovered the names of 
 Darius and Xerxes. Since this first step, immense progress has been 
 made in deciphering, and now nearly every word in this branch of 
 cuneiform writuig can be read with tolerable certainty. The 
 contents of one column having been thus ascertained, it was, of 
 
CUNEIFOEM, OR ARROW-HEADED WRITING. 
 
 37 
 
 course, less difficult to decipher the other two. By carefully 
 comparing proper names, and by other means familiar to scholars, 
 the value of a number of letters was soon ascertained. Although 
 owhig to the great variety of signs used by the Assyrians, (many 
 being rather syllables than letters, and others representing whole 
 words,) and to the language being far removed from any known 
 dialect, the progress hitherto made in deciphering has not been 
 such as to enable us to read inscriptions with anythuig like 
 fluency and certainty; yet they have furnished, as we have shown, 
 discoveries of the utmost importance in the history, geography, and 
 religion of the ancient Assyrians.^ 
 
 The public records of the Assyrians were engraved on stone, for 
 which the a,rrow-headed character, from its simplicity, was pecu¬ 
 liarly well adapted, and were usually, as we have seen, placed on 
 the walls of temples, or palaces, and on rocks. For private, as 
 well as in some cases, for public purposes, two other materials 
 appear to have been used, baked clay or terra-cotta, and rolls of 
 leather or papyrus as in Egypt. In the first case, the letters 
 were stamped or incised with a sharp instrument upon the moist 
 clay, moulded into the shape of an octagonal or hexagonal cylinder, 
 or into square or oblong tablets, and then baked in the furnace. 
 An immense number of such documents have been discovered in 
 Assyrian and Babylonian ruins and a large collection is now 
 in the British Museum. The cylinders are historical, and are 
 inscribed with the records, in the shape of annals, of various kings 
 of Assyria, by whose orders they appear to have been distributed 
 amongst the different cities of the empire, to be deposited, it may be 
 conjectured, in the public archives. The smaller tablets are 
 mostly of a more private nature—some are evidently contracts for 
 the sale of land or other property, and have upon them impressions 
 of seals and the names of witnesses ; others appear to commemorate 
 dedicatory offerings to the gods ; others again have clironological 
 tables and astronomical calculations, which will probably prove of 
 great value, and upon some have been detected alphabets and 
 apparently lessons in grammar or spelling. In fact, there is reason 
 to hope that they form almost a complete Assyrian library, fur- 
 nisliing us with a vast amount of information regarding the 
 liistory, sciences, and customs of the Ninevites. No remains of 
 
 * The principal authorities on the deciphering of the cuneiform inscriptions 
 to which we would refer our readers, are papers of Col. Rawlinson and Dr. 
 Hincks in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and in the Transactions of 
 the Royal Irish Academy. 
 
38 
 
 THE NINEYEH COUET. 
 
 tlie scrolls of parcliment or papyrus have been as yet discovered ; 
 they have probably all been destroyed by time, but seals once 
 appended to such documents have been found in considerable 
 numbers, and in the bas-reliefs officers are continually represented 
 as registering on such scrolls with a pen or stylus, the amount of 
 the slain and of the spoil after a battle. 
 
 The Assyrians had also a more cursive mode of writing than the 
 cuneiform. It resembled that in use throughout Syria, a type of 
 which is the Phoenician and ancient Hebrew. Yery few specimens 
 of this writing have as yet been discovered. 
 
 The Assyrian inscriptions are in a branch of that family of 
 languages usually called the Shemitic, that is to say, bearing 
 a close analogy to the ancient Hebrew, Chaldee and Arabic, and 
 it is by the help of these three languages that they have been 
 successfully deciphered. In the time of Daniel, the Chaldee was 
 spoken in Babylon, and was used by the Jews in their sacred 
 books. It appears to bear the nearest resemblance to the language 
 of the Assyrian monuments. A corrupted dialect of the same 
 tongue is still spoken by the ISTestorian Chaldsean tribes, who inhabit 
 the mountains of Kurdistan and the neighbourhood of the ruins of 
 ancient Kineveh. 
 
 The cuneiform writing appears to have been used as late as the 
 Greek supremacy in the East, and Colonel Bawlinson has recently 
 announced the highly interesting discovery of the names of Seleucus 
 and Antiochus the Great on some tablets found by Mr. Loftus, the 
 Agent of the Assyrian Excavation Fund, during his excavations for 
 the Society in the ruins of Wurka to the South of Babylon. The 
 discovery of these names is a further proof of the accuracy of the 
 interpretation of the arrow-headed character. 
 
Entrance to Nine veil Court. 
 
 ASSTEIAN AECHITECTUEE. 
 
 Before describing the ISTineveh Court in the Crystal Palace, it 
 will be necessary to explain the nature of Assyrian architecture, 
 and the grounds upon which we can venture to restore any portion 
 of an Assyrian palace. All the edifices liitherto explored in Assyria 
 were built upon platforms or artificial mounds raised to the height 
 of thirty or forty feet above the level of the surrounding country. 
 These terraces were partly constructed of earth and rubbish heaped 
 together, and partly of regular layers of sun-dried bricks. That 
 part of the great mound at Nimroud on which the more ancient 
 palaces stand, appears to be entirely formed of such bricks carefully 
 laid and united by tenacious clay. At Babylon, as the Greeks have 
 informed us, and as existing remains still show, reeds were placed 
 at certain intervals between the layers of bricks and the whole was 
 cemented with bitumen ; but this mode of construction has only 
 been found in one instance in Assyria—in the high conical mound at 
 Nimroud. The platforms appear in most cases to have been faced. 
 
40 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 and to liave been supported by solid masonry of limestone. At 
 certain intervals were flights of steps and inclined ways leading up 
 to the buildings, wliich were generally constructed on the very edge 
 of the artificial terrace, and thus commanded a view over the 
 surrounding country. 
 
 The object of raising these great platforms, which must have 
 demanded scarcely less labour and expense than the superstruc¬ 
 tures they were destined to sustain, was twofold—^to give the '^oyal 
 or sacred edifices additional dignity and grandeur, and to secur j in a 
 climate remarkable for its intense heat during the summer months, 
 as much coolness as possible. In some cases, too, especially 
 in the lowlands of Babylonia, they may have served both as a means 
 of defence, and to protect the buildings against the effects of 
 inundations, to which that country is subject. The earliest settle¬ 
 ments in Mesopotamia and Shinar were on a perfectly level plain, mth 
 scarcely a natural elevation to break the horizon around. In 
 order, therefore, to raise the principal public edifices, such as the 
 royal palace or the temple, above the surrounding habitations, the 
 people were compelled to make an artificial hill, and hence the 
 origin of these vast platforms. This mode of construction having 
 become an essential feature of the arcliitecture of tliis part of the East, 
 and hence probably, as was usual in ancient times, invested with a 
 rehgious character, was adopted by the descendants of the earliest 
 settlers, even when they had extended their dominions to the 
 northwards, and had founded their capital, Nineveh, in the midst 
 of a land where natural hills were not wanting, upon which public 
 buildings could be erected. 
 
 In the series of bas-rehefs discovered at Kouyunjik already men¬ 
 tioned, and part of v.^hich is now in the British Museum, the process 
 of building these platforms or terraces, and of raising the great bulls 
 and other large masses to the top of them, was minutely represented. 
 Long lines of workmen, some to be recognised by their peculiar 
 costumes as captives from foreign lands, others bound together in 
 chains, and probably public malefactors, are seen with stones or 
 with baskets filled with earth or bricks on their backs, hastening to 
 add their burdens to the accumulating mound. Groups of men are 
 pourtrayed crouching on the ground and kneading the clay to make 
 the bricks. Overseers urge on the workmen with blows. To transport 
 the winged bulls and the great stones used in the building, sledges 
 are employed, with rollers, levers, and ropes. Immense bodies 
 of men drag them by main force up the inclined plane. The 
 king in person, surrounded by his principal officers and by his 
 
ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 41 
 
 armed guards, presides over tlie proceedings. Officers specially- 
 appointed direct the -workmen, and some give with trumpets the 
 necessary signals. Considering the enormous size of these sculp¬ 
 tures, some of them being nearly twenty feet square, it is astonishing 
 that the Assyrians should have been able not only to move them, 
 but to raise them in their palaces. It is evident from the discoveries 
 which have been made in the ruins, that although the colossi were 
 roughly sculptured before being transported to the buildings 
 intended to receive them, they were not finished until after they 
 had been placed against the walls. 
 
 Having thus raised an artificial platform, and conveyed the 
 principal building materials to its summit, the Assyrians com¬ 
 menced their palaces. One general plan suited to the habits of 
 the people, and most probably consecrated either by long custom or 
 by certain religious prejudices, both considerations as is well known 
 exercising an extraordinary influence in the East over the arts as 
 well as the manners of a nation, was adopted in these edifices. 
 It consisted almost in every instance of oblong chambers placed 
 side by side, either leading to the terrace or grouped round large 
 halls, or rather court-yards open to the sky, generally square and 
 situated within the building itself. Some of the chambers were 
 nearly two hundred feet long, and from twenty-five to forty feet 
 broad ; but they were usually somewhat less than half this length, 
 and about twenty feet in width. Many rooms of much smaller 
 dimensions were scattered tlrrough the building, and at Kouyunjik 
 long galleries led from one part of the palace to the other. 
 Mr. Fergusson, in his ingenious and learned Essay on the Archi¬ 
 tecture of the Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis, has shown the 
 probability that these great edifices were divided according to 
 oriental custom, into two distmct parts, that containing the apart¬ 
 ments inhabited by the men and reserved for public ceremonies, 
 and that appropriated to the women, the harem of the modern 
 eastern house. There are many circumstances, into which it is 
 scarcely necessary here to enter, to confirm the views of this gentle¬ 
 man upon this subject. 
 
 The exterior of the buildings, which were nearly square, all the 
 walls being invariably at right angles, had generally two fa 9 ades or 
 principal faces. One opened upon the terrace or platform, and the 
 other, on the opposite side, rose on the edge of the mound, and 
 usually overlooked the river, when the palace, as in the case of 
 Nimroud and Kouyunjik, was built upon the very banks of the 
 Tigris. These fa§ades consisted almost always of three entrances. 
 
REMAINS OF FACADE DISCOVERED AT KODYUNJIK, WITH GROUND-PLAN. 
 
ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 43 
 
 tlie principal being in the centre, and ornamented with two 
 colossal human-headed bulls or lions, forming the sides or jambs 
 of the portal. The two side gateways in the more splendid edifices 
 were flanked by similar figures, and between them and the centre 
 entrance were pairs, of the same winged monsters, of somewhat 
 smaller size, placed back to back, and separated by a colossal 
 human figure, usually represented as stranghng a lion. These 
 intervening bulls had the human head turned sideways, so as to 
 look outwards from the front of the building. Each bull was, 
 moreover, flanked by a colossal figure of a deity or priest, pre¬ 
 senting a pine-cone. Thus the south-eastern front of Sennacherib’s 
 palace at Kouyunjik consisted of ten human-headed buUs, the 
 largest being about nineteen feet high, and of six gigantic human 
 figures, occupying altogether a space of no less than 180 feet. It was 
 continued on either side by sculptured walls, which completed the 
 whole fa9ade. The wood-cut on the opposite page will best illustrate 
 this part of the building, remains of the whole of which, although 
 considerably damaged by fire, having been found in the ruins. 
 
 Six bulls, as in the restored INineveh Court, was, however, a 
 more usual arrangement, the side entrances being simply adorned 
 with colossal winged figures, representing divinities or priests. In 
 the interior the doorways leading from the chambers into the 
 courtyards, and in some instances those opening into the principal 
 halls were likewise formed by human-headed bulls or lions. The 
 smaller entrances were flanked by winged figures. 
 
 The walls, which were of extraordinary thickness, were solidly 
 constructed of sun-dried bricks ; but they were usually panelled 
 with slabs of alabaster, or some other stone elaborately carved 
 either with single figures, as in the principal hall of the JNineveh 
 Court, or with entire scenes, occupying the whole slab, as at 
 Kouyunjik, or divided into two compartments by a band of 
 inscriptions, and representing battles, sieges, and domestic events, 
 as in the inner chamber of the restored building. 
 
 We have already observed, that the whole of the upper part of 
 the building, with the exception of a few feet of sun-dried brick 
 wall above the line of sculptured panels, had fallen in and perished. 
 All that remains, therefore, of the Assyrian edifices is that part 
 which being faced with stone has been able to resist the ravages of 
 time. Consequently the general plan of the buildings, together 
 with the substructure, has been preserved to us. The upper part 
 having entirely disappeared, must be restored by comparison with 
 monuments of the same, or of nearly the same period, by analogy 
 
OF FAgADE DISCOVEKED AT KHORSABAD. 
 
ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 45 
 
 with the modern architecture of the same country, and by such 
 representations of buildings as may be found in the sculptures on 
 the walls. By such means, Mr. Fergussonhas been enabled to find 
 materials for the restoration of the Assyrian building which now 
 occupies so conspicuous a place in the Crystal Palace. 
 
 We will proceed to point out the sources which have furnished 
 the different parts pmd details of this restoration. Existing 
 remains show that above the line of marble slabs the wall was 
 contmued in sun-dried bricks covered with plaster or stucco, and 
 painted with human figures, usually the king and his attendants, 
 representations of animals, mythological subjects, and various 
 ornaments, generally of a sacred character. As the bulls forming 
 the portals were about seventeen or eighteen feet high, it 
 is most probable that the painted wall was carried to the same 
 height, or was about equal to the height of the sculptures. The 
 whole appears to have been crowned by a cornice of some sort, 
 supported by dentels, representing a closed fist, numbers of which 
 have been found in the Assyrian ruins.* They have been conse¬ 
 quently adopted in the restora,tion. 
 
 Wlien sculptmed slabs were not employed as panelling, the walls 
 were either entnely stuccoed and painted, or a curious system of 
 ‘‘reeding” was introduced, consisting of half-columns placed side 
 by side, and separated into groups by square box-like pilasters. 
 Tins peculiar ornament, winch appears to have prevailed in 
 Babylonia as well as in Assyria, has been used in the southern 
 entrance to the central hall of the NTineveh Court. 
 
 Numerous representations in the bas-rehefs, as well as recent 
 discoveries, prove that many of the Assyrian gateways were arched, 
 but it is by no means certain to what extent these vaulted entrances 
 were used in the interior of the buildings. Two great portals 
 leading into the city have been excavated at Khorsabad, one of 
 which is flanked by human-headed bulls, from whose backs springs 
 an arch nearly fifteen feet in span, decorated with an ornamental 
 border of painted bricks. This entrance has been faithfully copied 
 in the centre hall of the Nineveh Court. By its side was a gate¬ 
 way of smaller dimensions, without any sculptures, and simply 
 arched. It appears by the marks of wheels on the pavement, 
 to have been used by chariots, whilst the more highly ornamented 
 portal was reserved for foot passengers. 
 
 * These dentels are frecpiently covered with blue enamel, the colour used in 
 the restoration. 
 
46 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 The pavement of the halls aud chambers was formed either 
 by slabs of alabaster, similar to those employed for the decoration 
 of the walls, or by large square bricks. In the first case the slabs 
 were generally inscribed on both sides, as in the north-west palace 
 
 Ilumaii-lieaded bull at Khorsabdd. 
 
 at Nimroud, with cuneiform inscriptions containuig the titles of the 
 king, the names of the great gods of Assyria, and a list of the 
 countries conquered by, or tributary to Nineveh, or were elaborately 
 carved with graceful ornaments and scroll-work, as in the palace at 
 Kouyunjik. As a general rule, inscribed or ornamented slabs were 
 found between the human-headed bulls, and at the various entrances. 
 When bricks were employed for the pavement they were usually 
 placed in two layers, between which was a bed of fine sand to exclude 
 moisture. The bricks were generally inscribed on the under side aU 
 with the name of the king who founded the edifice, and were some¬ 
 times cemented mth bitumen. They varied in dimensions from 
 one foot to sixteen inches square. Drains were carried beneath all 
 the principal parts of the Assyrian palaces, and appear to have 
 communicated v/ith one main sewer. They were frequently 
 arched, and many thus constructed have been discovered both at 
 Nimroud and Khorsabad. Beneath the foundations and imder 
 the pavement, it appears to have been the custom of the Assyrians 
 to place small images of their gods and tablets inscribed with 
 dedicatory inscriptions, intended for the protection of the building. 
 Many such objects were found during the excavations, especially 
 beneath the winged bulls and lions. It has not been considered 
 
ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. 47 
 
 necessary to introduce an Assyrian pavement in the restored 
 Nineveh Court. 
 
 It will be seen, from the foregoing remarks, that the lower part 
 of the Nineveh Court, to the height of seventeen feet from the 
 ground, has been entirely copied, with the exception of the pave¬ 
 ment, from existing remains, and that there are sufficient grounds 
 for the various ornaments and details wliich have been introduced 
 on its vails. 
 
 The superstructure above this level, as well as the roofs of 
 the Assyrian palaces, was almost entirely built of wood and other 
 perishable materials. The buried chambers were partly filled with 
 charcoal and charred wood, the effects of the great fire v/hich de¬ 
 stroyed the building. At Nimroud many entire beams of cedar 
 and other wood were found in the ruins, some still entire, others 
 falling to an almost impalpable powder as soon as exposed to the 
 air. With the exception of some imperfect representations in the 
 bas-reliefs, we could have had no materials for the restoration of 
 the upper part of the building, had it not happened that at Susa 
 and Persepolis the architects, in erecting the palaces of the Persian 
 kings, had employed stone to replace those parts which in 
 Assyria were of wood. The remains still existmg among the ruins 
 of those celebrated cities prove beyond a doubt that the Persians, 
 who, after the fall of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, suc¬ 
 ceeded to the dominion of the East, received from the Assyrians 
 their religion, their arts, and their civilisation, closely copying them 
 in all particulars. The human-headed bull of the Nineveh palaces 
 is found faithfully reproduced at Persepolis. Slabs sculptured with 
 bas-reliefs of processions, and with single winged figures, line the 
 chambers and the facades ; myths and religious symbols, similar to 
 those found on the monuments of Nimroud, are pourtrayed upon 
 the walls ; and the cuneiform character was used to record the 
 glory and the titles of the king. Besides, many details of archi¬ 
 tectural moulding almost identical have been foimd in the Assyrian 
 and Persian ruins. Such being the case, we can have httle 
 hesitation in supplying from the one edifice what is wanting 
 in the other. It seems to have been only from the accident 
 of Persepolis and Susa having been built in a country where stone, 
 peculiarly fitted for building purposes, was abundant, that any 
 change took place in the materials used, and in the form of 
 construction. 
 
 Following the lights thus afforded us, the four great columns 
 in the central hall of the Nineveh Court, are carefully modelled 
 
48 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 from tliose still standing at Persepolis, similar columns having 
 been lately dug up at Susa—a mode of reproduction which has 
 been preferred to attempting to compose a column from such 
 fragments of Assyrian arcliitecture as have been found at 
 INineveh ; for although bases, and perhaps capitals, have been 
 discovered among the Assyrian ruins, and columns are represented 
 in the sculptures, they are neither so complete or so distinct as to 
 enable us to reconstruct the whole with any degree of certainty. 
 The same remarks ajjply to the smaller pillars rising above the 
 sculptmed walls, which are also borrowed from Persepohs. The 
 bull capitals are peculiarly appropriate in an Ass 5 rrian building 
 where this animal, apparently looked uj)on as sacred, continually 
 occurs in the painted and sculptured decorations. It is absolutely 
 necessary that columns should have been employed in supporting 
 the roof, especially in a country which does not afford beams of 
 wood of sufficient size and strength to span chambers of the 
 dimensions of those in the Assyrian palaces. The open super¬ 
 structure was equally necessary for the admission of the requisite 
 quantity of light and air, and, at the same time, for the exclusion 
 of the perpendicular rays of the sun in summer, and the heavy 
 rains in winter ; considerations which it is indispensable to bear in 
 mind in attempting any restoration of an Assyrian building No 
 form of construction could be devised more fit to obtain these ends 
 than that used in the Nineveh Court ; and as in several repre¬ 
 sentations of buildings in the bas-reliefs short columns are intro¬ 
 duced into the fa 9 ade, and as a similar mode of admitting light 
 and air is still found in parts of the East, Mr. Fergusson has 
 not hesitated to adopt it in the restoration. 
 
 It is quite certain that the tops of the columns were connected 
 by massive beams of wood, forming the framework upon which the 
 roof rested. The ceiling has been subdivided in a mode still 
 very prevalent not only in Mesopotamia, but also in India and 
 other eastern countries. Though this part of the restoration 
 cannot pretend to very minute accuracy, it serves as a vehicle for 
 the display of the peculiar forms of decorative painting of the 
 Assyrians, all the patterns and ornaments being reproduced from 
 those discovered in the excavations. The Assyrian ceilings were 
 probably adorned with precious woods, ivory, and gilding. In the 
 Bible we find mention of a “ roof of cedar wood ” (Zejffianiah ii. 14), 
 and of chambers ‘ ‘ ceiled with cedar and painted with vermilion ” 
 (Jeremiah xxii. 14). The greater house of the temple of Solomon 
 was ceiled with fir-tree wliich “ was overlaid with fine gold and 
 
COLUMNS 
 
 PERSEPOLTS. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 thereon were set palm-trees and chains ” (2 Chronicles iii. 5), a 
 mode of decoration which may have resembled that introduced 
 in the ceiling of the restored Mneveh Court, the palm-trees being 
 the sacred tree and the chains the guilloche border. In the 
 inscriptions from ISTineveh the king is described as going, like 
 Solomon, to Mount Lebanon to cut down cedars for the beau¬ 
 tifying of his palace. 
 
 The external comice, resting upon the pillars of the fagade, is 
 modelled from a bas-relief discovered by M. Botta at Khorsabad, 
 representing a fisliing kiosk or temple, with two circular columns and 
 two square piers arranged precisely as in the restoration, and sur¬ 
 
 mounted by a similar cornice. Of tliis bas-relief we have given a 
 sketch. The curved cornice above the ljulls has been copied 
 from an architectural moulding found in the same ruins. By a 
 letter recently received from Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, who is now 
 superintending the excavations at NTineveh, it appears that a 
 sculpture has been discovered at Kouyunjik, in which a palace is 
 
ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 61 
 
 very minutely pourtrayed, and that in tliis representation the 
 upper part of the edifice is formed by columns resting upon 
 winged bulls and lions ; thus confirming, as it would seem, the 
 restoration we are describing. 
 
 There is one point connected -with the remains discovered at 
 Nineveh, which adds additional interest to them ; the similarity 
 which appears to have existed between the architecture of the Jews 
 and the Assyrians. This is especially exemplified in the descrip¬ 
 tions given in the Bible of the temple and royal house of Solomon, 
 and even still more by the accounts preserved to us by Josephus of 
 those celebrated buildings. The same style seems to have pre¬ 
 vailed in both countries, and we are now, for the first time, abla 
 to understand the accounts of the Bible from the discoveries in 
 Assyria. Solomon “carved all the house around with carved 
 figures of cherubim and palm trees, and open flowers within and 
 without.” The cherubim have been described by commentators on 
 the Bible as mystic figures uniting the human head mth the body 
 of an ox or a lion, and the wings of an eagle ; in fact, composed 
 of the same elements as the colossal sphinxes at Nineveh, which 
 were perhaps but a corrupted and traditional version of that reve¬ 
 lation which taught the image of the cherubim to the Jews. 
 The house of the forest of Lebanon appears to have been almost 
 identical with one of the great halls of Nineveh. The roof was 
 formed of cedar wood supported by rows of cedar columns standing 
 _ on the floor. The walls, according to Josephus (b. viii., c. 2), 
 “ were wainscoted with stones that were sawed,” i. e. into slabs, 
 as in the Assyrian palaces ; and appear to have been sculptured 
 with ornaments, principally representations of trees and plants, in 
 relief. And Josephus adds, “the rest of the wall, up to the roof, 
 was plastered over, and, as it were, wrought over with various 
 colours and pictures,” thus, agreeing exactly with the sides of the 
 chambers as restored in the Nineveh Court. 
 
 The edifices hitherto explored at Nineveh appear to have 
 been palace-temples—^that is to say, they served both for the 
 residence of the king who was the high-priest as well as the 
 political ruler of the nation, and for the celebration of great 
 rehgious ceremonies in wliich he was the principal ofiiciator. Such 
 was also the case in Egypt, where the palace also comprised the 
 temple. 
 
52 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OE THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 The Nineveh. Court is situated in the north-western angle of 
 the Crystal Palace. It occupies five hays in frontage and two 
 in width ; the extreme length being 126 feet, and the depth 63 
 feet. Its exterior height, exclusive of the battlements, is 37 ft. 
 2 inches. The halls are 32 ft. 7 in. high to the under part of the 
 great beams, and this, consequently, is the height of the great 
 columns which support the roof. The walls beneath the smaller 
 columns, forming the division between the halls and the exterior 
 are 17 ft. 7in. high. 
 
 The court is not a complete restoration of any particular 
 Assyrian building. It has been the endeavour to convey to the 
 spectator as exact an idea as possible of Assyrian architecture, and 
 for this purpose a facade has been restored, as it has been seen, 
 from existing remains, and two halls or chambers have been 
 selected. The internal arrangement is, of course, arbitrary. It 
 consists of two distinct apartments. The principal hall, 70 feet 
 by 31 feet, is ornamented with casts from sculptures now in the 
 British Museum, taken from several chambers in the north-west 
 palace at Nimroud. The inner chamber 33 feet by 22 feet, is 
 surrounded by bas-reliefs from one great hall discovered among 
 the same ruins, placed as nearly as the dimensions of the room will 
 permit in the order in which they were originally found. The 
 principal hall gives a very accurate idea of the nature of the 
 larger chambers of an Assyrian palace, which probably served 
 for great public ceremonies, celebrating national triumphs or 
 connected with religious worship. Although the space at com¬ 
 mand would not permit the re-production of the vast dimensions 
 of many of those chambers—some, as we have already observed, 
 being nearly 200 feet in length—yet the proportions have been as 
 nearly as possible maintained. The inner chamber, in its propor¬ 
 tions and details, resembles some of the smaller rooms in the 
 edifices discovered at Nineveh, and may be accepted, supposing the 
 superstructure and ceiling to be correctly restored, as a very exact 
 representation of a royal apartment in an Assyrian palace. 
 
DESCRIPTION OE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 53 
 
 The two smaller chambers, opening into the central hall, will be 
 fitted up with original sculptures, obtained by the Company from the 
 excavations and shortly expected in this country, and with casts from 
 any new and interesting bas-reliefs which may be hereafter placed 
 in the British Museum. These chambers, it must be observed, 
 form no part of an Assyrian building, and have been merely taken 
 from the thickness of the wall, in order that no space might 
 be unnecessarily lost. In the original edifices, the dimensions 
 of the wall correspond with the depth of the entrances, and 
 the whole of this great mass consists of masonry of sun-dried 
 bricks. 
 
 In restoring the various details and painted ornaments of the 
 INineveh Court, care has been taken to select those of most 
 frequent occurrence in the Assyrian palaces which have hitherto 
 been explored. They have been combined with as much regard as 
 possible, to the peculiar characteristics of Assyrian arcliitecture, 
 and, as far as we can judge from existing remains, of Assyrian 
 taste. The arrangement and contrasts of the colom’s have been 
 carefully studied, and when there has been no authority for their use 
 in any particular instance, a comparison with other monuments and 
 especially with Egyptian remains have, in some instances, furnished 
 the means of deciding which to adopt. It may appear strange and 
 unnatural to us that colour should be employed in all parts of 
 such an edifice, and that even sculptures and bas-reliefs in various 
 materials should be painted. But that such was the case in 
 Assyria, as indeed in Egypt and in ancient Greece, can now no 
 longer admit of a doubt, and in restoring an Assyrian palace, it 
 would have been absurd to omit so essential a feature of Assyrian 
 arcliitecture. The same rule has consequently been adopted with 
 the JSTiiieveh Court, as with all the other restorations in the 
 Crystal Palace, to render it as nearly as possible in every respect 
 like the original buildings. Care, at the same time, has been taken 
 to consult every authority upon the subject. The traces of colour 
 still existing on the monuments discovered at NTineveh, especially 
 upon those at Khorsabad, have been minutely examined, and have 
 furnished sufficient data for the painting of most of the bas-reliefs 
 and architectural details. In describing the different parts of the 
 building, we shall point out the authority for each particular 
 ornament, and for its employment in the place where introduced. 
 From the remains of gold-leaf continually found amongst the 
 ruins, it would appear that gilding was profusely employed in 
 the Assyrian palaces. It is even probable that many parts 
 
54 
 
 THE NINEVEH COUET. 
 
 were overlaid with thin plates of gold or other precious 
 metals. In this mode of decoration we have another analogy with 
 the great edifices raised by Solomon, in which the beams, the posts, 
 the winged Cherubim, and even the walls of the upper, as well as 
 of the principal chambers, were overlaid with gold (2 Chronicles iii). 
 In the restoration it would have been impossible to have attempted 
 the introduction of gilding without carrying it out to its fullest 
 extent. A yellow colour has consequently been substituted for 
 it. The colours employed in the Assyrian buildings, as far as they 
 have yet been analysed, were mineral pigments. There are, 
 however, grounds for believing that vegetable colours were not 
 unknown to the Ass 3 n-ians, but were extensively used in decorating 
 the walls of their palaces. Being subject, however, to more rapid 
 decay than the mineral pigments, they have disappeared. The 
 colours discovered in the ruins were a blue of great brilliancy 
 derived from copper, red, yellow, white, black, and green. These 
 colours, with several shades and tints, may be seen on bricks brought 
 from the ruins and preserved in the British Museum. The dark 
 black outline is a distinguishing feature of Assyrian art. As on 
 Egyptian monuments, colours were probably used conventionally— 
 that is to say, the same colours were always employed for a certain 
 class of objects. From the drav/ings made from painted walls at 
 Khorsabad, recently sent to Paris, it would appear, however, that 
 the human flesh was closely imitated in colour. The Assyrians 
 appear also to have been fond of using only two colours, such, for 
 instance, as blue and yellow, in very elaborate decorations, com¬ 
 bining them so as to skilfully produce a very pleasing efl'ect. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 55 
 
 THE EXTEBIOE OE EAgADE. 
 
 The lower part of the facade is almost entirely copied from 
 existing remains at Khorsabad and Konyunjik, and is formed by 
 winged human-headed bulls and gigantic human figures — casts, 
 (with the exception of the two bulls fianking the centre entrance), 
 from sculptures discovered among the former ruins, and now in the 
 Museum of the LouArre, at Paris. The inscriptions on the bulls 
 contain the name of Sargon, the Assyrian Kang, mentioned in 
 Isaiah xx., by some supposed to be the same as Shalmaneser, who 
 destroyed Samaria and earned away the ten. tribes. The winged 
 human-headed bulls were, probably, emblematical figures con¬ 
 nected with the religion of the Assyrians, representing the union 
 of wisdom, power, and ubiquity—the three great attributes of the 
 Deity—wisdom typified by the head of a man ; power by the body 
 of a bull ; and ubiquity by the wings of a bird. 
 
 The prophet Ezekiel saw in his vision four living creatures with 
 four faces and fom’ wings ; the faces being those of a man, a lion, an 
 ox, and an eagle—the four sacred types of the Assyrian sculptures. 
 As Ezekiel was amongst the Samaritan captives carried away by 
 Shalmaneser, and as he prophesied on the banks of the Chebar, one 
 of the rivers of Assyria, he had probably seen the palace of that 
 king at Khorsabad, and it has been conjectured that he employed 
 types well-known to his fellow-captives in order to convey and 
 illustrate his meaning. 
 
 It will be observed that all these figures have five legs, the 
 sculptor being desirous of giving the spectator a complete front, as 
 Avell as side view of the animal. 
 
 The colossal figure strangling a lion is supposed to represent the 
 Assyrian Hercules—one of the great deities of the nation. 
 
 Above the basement rise columns whose capitals are in the form 
 of kneeling bulls, back to back ; they have been accurately modelled 
 from those found at Persepolis. We have described in our pre- 
 limiuary remarks the reasons which authorise their introduction into 
 an Assyrian building. The battlements, in the form of steps or 
 gradines, are a peculiar feature in Assyrian architecture and are 
 
5'6 
 
 THE NINEVEH COULT. 
 
 coiitiiiiially represented in tlie sculptures. Tlie painted ornaments 
 on the cornice are the honeysncklej alternating with a tulip or 
 
 Colossal figure from Khorsabad. 
 
 some such flower and the guilloche, both of pure Assyrian origin, 
 and the source of two of the most elegant architectural ornaments 
 of the Greeks, 
 
DESCrjrTION OF NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 57 
 
 CENTEAL HALL. 
 
 The principal entrance to this hall, opening upon the nave and 
 facing the fountain, is formed by a pair of human-headed bulls, 
 seventeen feet high, modelled from those discovered in the ruins 
 of NTimroud. The narrowness of the entrances, notwithstanding 
 the colossal forms wliich adorn them, is a peculiar feature in 
 Assyrian architecture. On the ceiling are painted the sacred tree, 
 the winged emblem of the great Assyrian God, and the winged 
 globe, which, as in Egypt, appears to have been emblema,tical of 
 the supreme Deity. 
 
 The columns which support the roof are, as we have stated, 
 copied from those still existing amongst the ruins of Persepolis and 
 Susa. We have already explained the reasons which appear to 
 justify their introduction into an Assyiian building, and we need 
 only repeat in tliis place, that although no columns of stone were 
 found at Mneveh, yet that columns of some kind, probably of 
 wood, must have been used to support the ceiling and roof in 
 halls of such vast size as those contained in the Assyrian palaces. 
 Columns with a kind of rude Ionic capital are in several instances 
 seen in buildings represented in the bas-reliefs. 
 
 The ceilmg has been restored by Mr. Fergusson, who has care¬ 
 fully selected from the various ornaments found in the ruins of 
 Nineveh, those which appear most appropriate for the decoration 
 of this part of the building ; every pattern and design thus in¬ 
 troduced, occurring either in the sculptm-es, on painted walls, or on 
 coloirred bricks discovered in the excavations. The arrangement 
 is, of course, arbitrary, as no ancient ceiling has been preserved. 
 We have already described in our introductory notes on the 
 architecture of the Assyrians, the grounds for the restoration of 
 this and other parts of the Nineveh Court. 
 
 The casts wliich surround this hall have all been taken from 
 sculptures discovered in the north-west palace at Nimroud, and 
 now in the British Museum. Behind the great bulls are three 
 small winged figimes of priests or deities, one above the other, a 
 mode of arrangement very common in Assyrian interior arcliitecture. 
 
THE AS3TEIAN KING. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE CENTRAL HALL. 
 
 59 
 
 To the left on entering, is a group (No. 1, on the plan) repre¬ 
 senting the king resting his right hand on a long wand or staff, 
 and standing between two winged figures. The Assyrian king may 
 always be known by liis head-dress, which consisted of a peculiar 
 conical cap or turban, apparently made up of bands of some 
 coloured material, surmounted by a small cone. This tiara was 
 reserved for the monarch alone, and he is never seen without it 
 on Assyrian monuments. The ancient Persian kings appear to 
 have worn a somewhat similar head-dress. The royal robes are 
 remarkable for the richness and variety of the designs probably 
 embroidered upon them, mostly of a sacred character, and the arms 
 for the elegance of their ornaments. The king, as well as his 
 principal nobles and attendants, wore ear-rings, bracelets, armlets, 
 and necklaces, and the splendour of liis attire, as represented in 
 the sculptures—^the long embroidered robes, the ornaments of gold 
 and precious stones, the elaborately curled hair, and the tassels and 
 ribands attached to various parts of his dress, more befitting a 
 woman than a man, are completely in accordance with the descrip¬ 
 tions, preserved to us by the Greek liistorians of the luxury and 
 effeminacy of the Assyrian monarchs. It is doubtful whether the 
 hair and beard so artistically dressed and curled were false. Wigs 
 may have been worn by the ancient Assyrians, as they appear to 
 have been by the Egyptians. The Chaldseans, however, who inhabit 
 a part of Assyria, and are believed to be the descendants of the 
 people of Nineveh, are still remarkable for the luxuriance and 
 blackness of their hair and beards, which would almost rival those 
 pourtrayed in the sculptures. 
 
 On either side of the king is a winged figm^e—whether of a 
 priest or of some inferior deity is still undecided. Such figures 
 occur continually on the walls of the Assyrian palaces, and there are 
 grounds for conjecturing that they are of a sacred character. 
 They have wings and wear the rounded cap with horns, similar to 
 that of the human-headed bulls. They carry in their hands two 
 objects, a pine cone and a square vessel, which are supposed 
 to be emblematic of the sacred elements—fire and water. Similar 
 figures are usually seen at the entrances, and appear to represent 
 the guardians and protectors of the building, and are therefore 
 probably minor divinities of the Assyrian hierarchy. In the present 
 instance they are ministering to the king, who alone is seen thus 
 attended by these winged figures. It must be observed that they 
 may be priests who disguised themselves as deities, an ancient 
 custom during the celebration of certain religious ceremonies. 
 

DESCRIPTION OF THE CENTRAL HALL, 
 
 61 
 
 Beyond this group an entrance leads into a small chamber, 
 wliich will eventually be appropriated to the exhibition of original 
 sculptures, now on their way from Nineveh. 
 
 The group beyond this entrance (No. 2) represents two men 
 bringing tribute to the King of Assyria. They formed part of a 
 long line of similar figures, bearing vessels and ornaments, probably 
 of gold and silver, wliich ornamented the exterior wall of the north¬ 
 west palace at Nimroud. From their peculiar dress they appear to 
 have been natives of a foreign country subject to Nineveh. In 
 some of the bas-reliefs from the same palace^ the Assyrians are 
 represented in battle v/ith an enemy similarly attired. The first 
 figure of the gTOup before us raises his hands, perhaps in token of 
 submission ; the next brings two apes or monkeys, one of which 
 is seated on his shoulder. 
 
 This group is followed by two winged figures (Nos. 3 and 4) ; the 
 first wears a garland round his head and bears a fallow-deer in one 
 hand, and a flower of peculiar shape in the other. It probably 
 represents a deity presiding over a month or season of the year, or 
 over some natural phenomenon. The second is a very peculiar figime, 
 and is, perhaps, found more frequently than any other on Assjuian 
 monuments. It unites with the body of a man the head of an eagle, 
 and has, consequently, been conjectured to represent the god Nisroch, 
 worshipped by the Assyrians, and before whose altar Sennacherib 
 was slain by his sons. The word “ Nisr ” in certain Eastern languages 
 closely allied to the Assyrian means an eagle, and long before the 
 discovery of these ruins the ancient commentators on the Bible 
 had asserted that the god Nisroch was worshipped under the form 
 of an eagle, or of an eagle-headed figure. 
 
 An entrance here leads into the transept. It is formed by a pair 
 of colossal human-headed bulls, similar to those at the principal 
 entrance into the central hall, which have already been described, 
 Beliind them is a wall of peculiar shape, consisting of a reeding, 
 or of a series of circular projections grouped together like tlie 
 barrels of an organ. This singular construction has been closely 
 capied from existing remains recently discovered at Khorsabad by 
 M. Place, and appears to have been frequently adopted in Assyrian 
 buildings, to adorn such walls as were not decorated with sculp¬ 
 ture. It was also used by the Babylonians, and a similar wall has 
 lately been found in the excavations carried on for the Assyrian 
 Excavation Fund by Mr. Loftus among the ruins of Wurka, to the 
 south of Babylon. It was built of terra-cotta cones, with bases 
 of different colours, embedded in clay, the bases being left outwards 
 
62 
 
 THE NINEVEH COUET. 
 
 so as to form a kind of mosaic, tlie design of wMeh is literally 
 reproduced in the present instance. The panelled pilasters which 
 terminate this decoration on both sides are also copied from those 
 which invariably accompany this peculiar construction at Khorsabad. 
 
 On the external wall facing the transept are two bas-reliefs, 
 casts from sculptures in the British Museum. That to the right 
 on issuing from the entrance, is the eagle-headed figure before de¬ 
 scribed, and that to the left a group surrounded by a frame, copied 
 from one in the Museum, and representing the king between two 
 eagle-headed figures and two peculiar objects which have been 
 called the sacred tree. Tliis emblem occurs continually on Assyrian 
 buildings and monuments. It has been supposed to have some 
 
 Eagle-lieaded figures before the Sacred Tree. 
 
 reference to the tree of life, so universally recognised as a sacred 
 and mysterious symbol in the religious systems of the East ; and 
 Mr. Fergusson has conjectured that it may be identified with the 
 ««grove,” or “groves” so frequently mentioned in the Bible as 
 a 1 object of idolatrous worship to the Jews. 
 
 Returning to the hall, and continuing to the left, we have a 
 group (NTos. 5 and 6) representing an eagle-headed figure, similar 
 to that on the opposite side of the entrance, and a priest or 
 divinity, with four wings, holding in one hand a mace with a 
 circular top and extending the other. 
 
 Two groups (Nos. 7 and 8) follow, one representing the king be¬ 
 tween his attendants, the other the same monarch between winged 
 

 THE ASSYRIAN KING ON HIS THRONE BETWEEN ATTENDANTS AND WINGED DEITIES 
 
64 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 figures. In the first the king is seen with a cup in his right 
 hand, either about to pour out a libation, or to raise it to his 
 lips. Before liim stands an eunuch holding in one hand a fly- 
 flapper, or fan, and in the other apparently a towel, which is tlrrown 
 over his shoulder, and is presented to the king after he has drunk 
 —a custom still prevailing in the East, where the cup-bearer is one of 
 the principal ofiicers in great households. Behind the king stands 
 another eunuch, who appears to be Iris arms-bearer, and carries a 
 mace, a bow, and a quiver. This group, which was repeated several 
 times on the walls of the same chamber, probably commemorates 
 some religious ceremony. 
 
 In the second group is the king raising two arrows in one hand, 
 and resting the other on his bow, an attitude in which he is 
 constantly represented in the Assyrian sculptures, and which 
 apparently denotes victory and triumph over his enemies. On 
 either side of him is a winged figure presenting the pine cone, 
 similar to those on the opposite side of the hall already described. 
 
 In the centre of the side of the room we are describing is an 
 entrance, formed by casts from the colossal human-headed lions 
 discovered at IVimroud, and novf in the British Museum. Like 
 the bulls at the opposite entrance, they appear to have typified 
 the great attributes of the deity, the idea of power being conveyed 
 by the body of a lion instead of that of a bull. The whole slab, 
 except that part occupied by the sculpture, is covered with a very 
 long inscription contiiining the records of the king who built the 
 north-west palace at IVimroud, between nine and ten centimies before 
 Christ. On either side of the lions, and apparently ministering 
 to them, are winged figures presenting the pine cone. Beyond tbe 
 winged figures are the deep panels which we have aheady de¬ 
 scribed. The remainder of this entrance—^that is to say, the arch 
 and the band of coloured ornament round it—is an exact copy, 
 on a somewhat smaller scale, of a gateway recently discovered at 
 Khorsabad, which will be sent entire by the discoverer, M. Place, to 
 France. The restoration has been made from drawings and sections 
 now in Paris. The construction of tliis arch was very peculiar, 
 and of a character only hitherto found in Assyria. The ornamented 
 portion, the band of patera and winged figures, was formed of 
 highly glazed or enamelled bricks, wliilst the inner part of the vault 
 consisted of clay of great tenacity moulded into the shape of, and 
 supporting the upper arch of brickwork. It is remarkable that such a 
 mode of construction should have so long resisted the ravages of time. 
 
 The whole wall beyond this entrance is occupied by one great 
 
DESCEIPTION OF THE CENTRAL HALL. 
 
 65 
 
 group (jSTo. 9), representing the king seated on a throne, or royal 
 stool, and, as in a preceding bas-relief, raising a cup in his right hand. 
 Before him is an eunuch holding a fan in one hand and a stand 
 to receive the cup in the other. Behind the eunuch is a winged 
 deity, or priest. On the other side of the king are his two 
 attendant arms-bearers, carrying his bow, arrows, and quiver, and 
 behind them a second winged figure. The whole group appears to 
 represent the celebration of some religious ceremony in comme¬ 
 moration of a victory. It occupied the end of a chamber in the 
 north-west palace at Nimroud, whose walls were covered with 
 similar groups, in which, however, the king stood erect instead of 
 being seated on the throne. 
 
 These bas-reliefs, of which the two groups on the opposite side 
 of the entrance form part, represent the triumph of the same king, 
 whose name reads Assur-yuchura-bal or Asshur-akh-pal, and who 
 may, perhaps, be identified with the Greek Sardanapalus. They 
 are amongst the best preserved hitherto discovered at ISTineveh, 
 and are remarkable for the great minuteness and elegance of the 
 details, many of which afibrd valuable additions to the religious 
 symbols of the Assyrians. These sculptures belong to the best 
 period of Assyrian art, and however conventional may be the treat¬ 
 ment of the human form, there is a simplicity and boldness of 
 outhne in the general design, and a beauty in the ornaments, 
 which as far as we can judge from the monuments hitherto dis¬ 
 covered, were never after equalled by the Assyrian artists. The 
 robes of the monarch as well as those of his attendants and of the 
 winged figures, are covered with the most elaborate designs, repre¬ 
 senting various mythic symbols and groups connected vith the 
 religion of Assyria. The emblem of the supreme deity, winged 
 divinities, winged horses, gryphons, sphinxes, ostriches, men 
 struggling with various animals, goats and bulls bending before a 
 sacred fiower, and a variety of other objects, are traced upon the 
 breast of the king and on the skirts of his robes, as well as on the 
 garments of the other figures. These ornaments were probably 
 embroidered. Ancient Assyria was celebrated for the beauty and 
 value of its dyed and figured stufis, and its merchants traded 
 with Tyre “ in blue clothes and broidered work” (Ezekiel xxvii. 
 24). The forms of many of the ornaments in these bas-reliefs 
 are especially deserving of attention on account of their close resem¬ 
 blance to those afterwards employed by the Greeks in architectural 
 decoration, of which, there are good grounds for believing, the 
 Assyrians furnished the original type. Greece derived much of 
 
66 
 
 THE NINEVEH COUET. 
 
 her art, as well as many of her religious myths, from the banks of 
 the Tigris and Euplnates, and the discoveries at IVineveh have 
 furnished many analogies to prove this connection, wliich are of 
 the highest interest to the critical historian and archaeologist. 
 
 The ornaments of the arms and of the furniture are remarkable 
 for their elegance. The handles of the swords and the ends of the 
 scabbards are in the form of lions, and may have been of precious 
 metal. The throne and footstool were probably made of cedar wood 
 and ivory, or of wood cased with copper or gold plates embossed 
 with figures, the extremities and some of the principal ornaments, 
 such as the rams’ heads and the lions’ feet, being also in metal. 
 A throne of this kind was discovered at IVimroud, but unfortu)lately 
 too much injured by time to bear removal, as it fell to pieces almost 
 as soon as exposed to the air. Fragments of the embossed copper¬ 
 plates, and the heads of the animals also in copper have alone been 
 preserved, and are now in the British Museum. 
 
 In looking upon these sculptures we cannot but be struck at 
 the remarkable illustration they afibrd, of the description given by 
 Ezekiel of the walls of an Assyrian palace. The prophet prophesy¬ 
 ing in Assjnia and denouncing the idolatrous practices which, 
 borrowed from strange nations, had crept into and corrupted the 
 pure religion of the Jews, thus describes the influence of the 
 Assyitans upon his perverse fellow-countrymen. “ She saw men 
 pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldseans pourtrayed 
 with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in 
 dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to after 
 the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldsea, the land of their 
 natiAuty.” (Chap, xxiii. 14, 15.) 
 
 At the north end of the central hall, and on each side of an 
 entrance leading into the inner chamber, are two groups (INos. 10 
 and 11) one similar to that on the opposite side before described ; 
 the other consisting of an eagle-headed god, and a winged figure 
 bearing in one hand an ibex, or wild goat, such as are still found 
 in the mountains of Assyria, and an ear of corn in the other. 
 
 In the group, NTo. 12, the king and winged figure are similar to 
 those in ISTo. 8 on the opposite side of the hall. An entrance leading 
 into a small chamber, at present unappropriated, separates this 
 group from a second, No. 13, which is a repetition of No 8. 
 
 The inscriptions across all the slabs in this hall are of the same 
 import, and record the titles, genealogy, and principal events of 
 the reign of the king Avho built the north-west palace at Nimroud. 
 Nearly every stone and slab discovered in that edifice, whether 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE CENTRAL HALL. 
 
 67 
 
 sculptured or not, bore on both sides this inscription, or an 
 abridged version of it, and upon nearly every brick was stamped 
 the names of the king, his father, and grandfather. 
 
 The bands of painted ornaments above the bas-reliefs, are 
 copied both in design and colour from remains recently discovered 
 at Khorsabad. The wall was continued over the sculptures with 
 glazed or enamelled bricks, a mode of decoration which appears to 
 have generally prevailed both at Nineveh and Babylon. An immense 
 number of these coloured bricks exist among the ruins of both 
 those great cities, and numerous specimens are preserved in the 
 British Museum. The lion and the bull in the principal band of 
 ornament, are the sacred animals continually represented on 
 Assyrian monuments. The tree is the conventional Assyrian form 
 for the vine, also, probably, a sacred emblem. The upper band 
 representing rosettes, or patera, between winged figures, is copied 
 from the decoration round the archway recently found by M. 
 Place, at KhorsabM. 
 
68 
 
 THE NINEVEH COUET. 
 
 INNEE CHAMBEE. 
 
 Passing tErongh the entrance at tlie north end of the hall 
 just described, and between small winged figures placed one 
 above the other, we enter the Inner Chamber, Its walls are 
 ornamented with casts from bas-reliefs discovered in the principal 
 hall of the North-west Palace of Nimroud, and now in the British 
 Museum. They formed a consecutive series on one side of the 
 apartment, and they all celebrate the exploits of the same king, 
 who is supposed to have reigned between nine hundred and a 
 thousand years before Christ. Between the sculptures, are inserted 
 repetitions of the same inscription to show the manner in which 
 they were originally divided. This inscription, however, although 
 found in the same building, is of a more recent date than the 
 bas-reliefs, and appears to have been carved at an entrance to the 
 palace by the order of Sargon, the builder of Khorsabad, whose 
 power and conquests it describes. We commence with the bas- 
 reliefs to the left on entering. 
 
 No. 1 (in the plan). The upper bas-relief represents the king in 
 his chariot, hunting the wild bull ; he is striking one annual with 
 a short sword in the back of the neck, precisely where a modern 
 Spanish matador would deal the last and fatal blow. A second 
 bull, pierced by arrows, is lying beneath the horses’ feet. The 
 royal chariot is driven by a charioteer, who holds in one hand a 
 short whip, and in the other the reins, with which he urges the three 
 horses to the top of their speed. Behind the chariot, is a horse¬ 
 man with a spear and bow leading a second horse, probably, for 
 the use of the king, in case of need, and two armed attendants. 
 The bull represented in this sculpture, was probably, at one time, 
 found wild in the great plains of Mesopotamia ; and the Bible 
 seems to allude to it (Deut. xiv, 5 ; Isaiah li, 20), as an animal 
 of great strength and fierceness. If we may judge from its 
 representation in the bas-relief, it had long, shaggy hair. It 
 must have become extinct even before the fall of the Assyrian 
 empire, as Xenophon does not mention it amongst the animals 
 inhabiting Assyria. An observation may be made here which is 
 applicable to all the Assyrian bas-reliefs—that ignorance of the 
 laws of perspective has led the sculptor to give the horses only 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE INNER CHAMBER. 
 
 69 
 
 one fore and liind leg, and to place tlie bull, as it were, between 
 tlie wheel and body of the chariot. 
 
 The lower bas-relief of ISTo. 1 in this instance, bears relation 
 to the upper, and represents the king after his victory over the 
 wild bull, pouring a libation, or drinking wine over the body of 
 the fallen animal. Whilst he raises the cup with his right hand 
 
 he rests his left on liis bow, an attitude denoting triumph and power 
 in which we have seen the monarch pourtrayed in the centre hall. 
 In front of hun are his prime minister, or vizier, an attendant raising 
 a fly-flapper, or fan, a second attendant standing with his hands 
 crossed before him—an attitude of respect still assumed by 
 inferiors and servants in the East—and musicians playing on a kind 
 of stringed instrument. Behind the king are an attendant bear¬ 
 ing the parasol—an emblem of royalty even to this day recognised 
 by many Eastern nations, and reserved for the monarch alone— 
 and his armed body guard. 
 
 ]No. 2. The king hunting the lion. He is bending his bow against 
 an infuriated animal, which, already pierced by several arrows, is 
 springing upon the chariot, whilst a second in the agonies of 
 death is struggling beneath the feet of the horses. Two warriors 
 on foot with drawn swords and raised shields appear to be hasten¬ 
 ing to the assistance of the king. This bas-relief is probably the 
 finest specimen hitherto discovered of Assyrian art, and is especially 
 remarkable for the spirited and effective dehneation of the lions, 
 which in their masterly, though somewhat conventional, treatment, 
 bear a close resemblance to the lion of the early Greek sculptors. 
 
 As on the preceding slab, the lower bas-relief of Ho. 2, forms a 
 part of the same subject as the upper, and represents the king in 
 
70 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 an attitude of triumph or thanksgiving over the fallen lion. He 
 is attended by his cup-bearer, guards, and musicians. 
 
 The lion represented in these bas-reliefs is still found on the 
 banks of the Euphrates and Tigris. It is smaller than the African 
 lion, and the male is rarely provided with the long shaggy mane 
 which distinguishes that species. But its chief peculiarity is the 
 claw or hook at the extremity of the tail, which has been pour- 
 trayed by the Assyrian artist, is described by ancient writers, 
 and has been recently found in a specimen brought to England 
 from countries adjoining Assyria. 
 
 The four bas-reliefs just described confirm the traditions which 
 have been preserved to us by the Greeks of the skill in hunting 
 of the ancient Assyrian kings. Himrod, who is supposed to have 
 been the founder of the Assyrian empire, was, the Bible tells us, 
 “ a mighty hunter before the Lord.” It is probable that when 
 from the increasing population of the plains watered by the Tigris 
 and Euphrates, lions were no longer found in sufficient abundance 
 to afibrd a ready supply for the chase, they were preserved in those 
 vast paradises, as they were called, which were especially kept up 
 by the Assyrian and Persian kings for hunting, and were plenti¬ 
 fully stocked with all manner of wild beasts and rare birds. In 
 the series of bas-reliefs lately discovered at Kouyunjik by Mr. 
 Rassam, representing the son of Esarhaddon hunting in one of 
 those great enclosed parks, an attendant is seen letting a lion out 
 of a cage, whilst the monarch, having already slain a number of 
 animals, whose carcases are scattered around him, is making ready 
 for a fresh contest. 
 
 Ho. 3. The siege of a city or fort. This bas-relief is principally 
 remarkable for the introduction of the battering-ram and artificial 
 tower. These engines of war appear to have been constructed of 
 wicker-work, and to have rested on wheels, by the aid of which 
 they were pushed up to the walls of the besieged town. The ram 
 is represented in the sculpture as having already dislodged several 
 stones from the walls. In the tower are two warriors discharging 
 their arrows against the enemy, one of whom is raising his hands 
 as a sign of surrender, whilst the others are still defending their 
 city. The king, with his shield-bearer protecting him from the 
 arrows of the besieged, and followed by his attendants, is taking 
 part in the siege. 
 
 The battering-ram, the ‘‘bulwarks,” the “forts built against 
 a city,” by which are probably meant artificial towers, and other 
 “ engines of war'” are frequently mentioned in the Bible, 
 especially as used by the Assyrians and Babylonians, in their wars 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE INNER CHAMBER, 
 
 71 
 
 •\vitli tlie Jews (Ezekiel, iv. 2 ; Jeremiah, lii. 4 ; and 2 Chronicles, 
 xxvi. 15). 
 
 The towers and walls of the besieged castle or city are repre¬ 
 sented with angular battlements, and an arched entrance. 
 
 No. 4. A castle on an island or on the banks of a river. On 
 one tower is an archer, on the other a woman, distinguished by 
 her long hair. Swimming to the castle and escaping from the 
 Assyrian warriors who are discharging arrows at them from the 
 bank, are three men, two of whom are supporting themselves on 
 inflated skins, a mode of crossing rivers still practised by the 
 Arabs inhabiting Mesopotamia, who generally carry the prepared 
 skin of a sheep with them for this purpose. Hafts far transporting 
 merchandise and travellers are constructed of similar skins, bloum up 
 with air and bound together with twigs and brushwood ; it was by 
 such means that the sculptures discovered amongst the ruins of 
 Nineveh were transported by the river Tigris to Busrah for embar- 
 cation. The conventional mode of treating the water and trees, 
 is worthy of observation. 
 
 The lower divisions of Nos. 3 and 4 form one subject—^the king 
 receiving prisoners of war, probably captured in the sieges represented 
 in the upper bas-reliefs. He has dismounted from his chariot, the 
 horses of which are now held by a groom, and is raising two 
 arrows in his hand, an attitude denoting victory. Before liim 
 stands his vizier, and attendants are bringing the captives, who 
 are bound together and have their arms fastened behind theii* 
 backs. Above them are represented various objects of spoil taken 
 in the war, such as vessels (probably of precious metals) shawls, 
 and elephant’s tusks. 
 
 As no descriptive inscriptions accompany the bas-reliefs just 
 described, the nation represented as conquered by the Assyrians 
 has not been determined. 
 
 Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, These four bas-reliefs form a consecutive series, 
 and represent a great battle, in which the Assyrians were, of 
 course, victorious. The king is seen in his chariot, attended by 
 his shield-bearer and charioteer. He is discharging his arrows 
 against the enemy, who endeavour to oppose his progress, and 
 a warrior already wounded has fallen beneath the feet of the 
 horses. Above his head is the emblem of the great protecting 
 god of the Assyrians, in the form of a man within a winged 
 circle, who especially watches over the monarch. The god is also 
 discharging an arrow, with a head shaped like a trident, against 
 the enemies of the Assyriansc Near is an eagle, emblem of 
 victory, feeding on the slain. In front of the king, also engaged 
 
72 
 
 THE NINEVEH COUET. 
 
 Bas-reliefs from Nimroud. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE BAS-RELIEFS. 
 
 73 
 
 with the enemy, are Assyrian warriors in chariots and on horses. 
 Some of the charioteers have standards bearing devices. The 
 battle scene is concluded by Assyrian footmen slaying the defeated. 
 
 In these bas-reliefs the elaborate and minute ornaments on the 
 robes of the figvires, the furniture of the horses, and the chariots, 
 are especially remarkable. The horses are delineated with 
 considerable spirit, and show that the Assyrians possessed a pure 
 breed of that noble animal—^probably resembling the Arab horse 
 
 now found in the same country. The Assyrian horsemen appear 
 to have been famous, and are frequently mentioned in the Bible as 
 well as the Assyrian horses (Ezekiel xxiii. 6 ; 2 Kings xviii. 23 ; 
 Habakkuk i. 8). When they fought wdth the bow, their horses 
 appear to have been led by a second horseman, who is represented 
 in the bas-reliefs as wearing a circular cap—probably of iron. The 
 Assyrian warriors, it must be observed, are distinguished by the 
 pointed helmet, several of which were discovered in the ruins. 
 They were of iron inlaid with copper ornaments, as represented in 
 the sculptures. 
 
 The lower compartments of Kos. 5, 6, 7, form a continuous 
 subject, representing the passage of a river by the king and his 
 army. In the first boat, towed by men, the king is standing in his 
 chariot. He appears to be conversing with an attendant who is 
 pointing out something on the opposite bank—perhaps the army or 
 the castle of the enemy. Three men are seated at the oars, aud the 
 boat is further propelled and steered by a long oar fastened to the 
 stern. The boats still used on the Euphrates and Tigris are 
 constructed and managed in the same mamier. A man standing 
 
74 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 in the stem holds by their halters four horses, who are swimming 
 over the river. Behind the king’s boat are two smaller vessels, 
 one carrying his couch and a jar, and the other an empty chariot ; 
 in the water, in which are seen several fish, are men floating on 
 skins, some leading horses. The scene is closed by warriors 
 standing on the bank superintending the embarcation of two 
 chariots, whilst two others are preparing their skins for swimming. 
 The river represented in these bas-reliefs is probably the Tigris, 
 and to this day, opposite the ruins of INineveh, may be seen pre¬ 
 cisely the same scene as that we have here described—so few are 
 the changes which take place in the customs of the East. 
 
 Nos. 9, 10, 11. The king returning victorious from battle. The 
 procession is preceded by Assyrian warriors throwing the heads of 
 
 the slain before the royal chariot. This barbarous mode of cele¬ 
 brating a victory is still practised by some Eastern nations. Next 
 come the musicians playing on stringed instruments, and on a drum. 
 They precede a group of Assyrian warriors in chariots, bearing 
 standards, probably the same as those represented in the previous 
 series of bas-reliefs, as combating with the enemy. Above them 
 hovers an eagle, carrying a human head in its talons. The king 
 in his chariot, followed by his led horse and guards, closes the 
 procession. The monarch holds two arrows in one hand, and liis 
 bow in the other—the usual attitude of triumph. His shield- 
 bearer is now changed for an attendant bearing the parasol, and 
 above him is his protecting deity, raising one hand, and holding a 
 bow in the other. Headless bodies are scattered in the back¬ 
 ground. 
 
 I'he lower compartments of Nos. 8, 9, 10. The king after a 
 victory receiving captives. He has left his chariot, the horses of 
 which are held by a groom. Before him is his vizier, followed by 
 
DESCEIPTION OF THE BAS-EELIEFS. 
 
 75 
 
 the prisoners, with their arms bound. Above the captives are 
 represented vases to denote the spoil taken from the enemy. 
 Behind the royal chariot are the two charioteers, the warriors 
 having dismounted. They are passing under the walls of a city or 
 castle, upon which stand women, aj)parently viewing the ceremony. 
 
 No. 11. Lower compartment. Assyrian warriors hunting the 
 lion. The wounded animal struggling to free itself from the 
 arrows with which it is pierced, is represented with great truth and 
 spirit. The details and finish of this bas-relief are worthy of 
 observation. 
 
 An arched doorway modelled from that discovered at Khorsabad, 
 
 and flanked by eagle-headed figures and the sacred tree, similar to 
 those already described, opens to the eastward into the great nave. 
 
 Nos. 12 to 15. These bas-reliefs form one subject, the siege of a 
 castle and a battle beneath its walls. The king is pursuing, and 
 
76 
 
 THE NINEVEH COUET. 
 
 about to discliarge an arrow against a warrior who is already falling 
 wounded from Ms chariot, the horses of wMch are rearing and 
 plunging. The monarch is protected from the arrows of the 
 besieged by his shield-bearer, and above Mm hovers the emblem 
 of the great god of Assyria. Behind Mm are two Assyrian 
 charioteers contending with the enemy, one of whom is flying in 
 his chariot before them, and looking back with Ms hands raised. 
 
 asking for quarter. Assyrian warriors and the headless bodies of 
 the slain are placed over the line of chariots, to represent, in a kind 
 of conventional perspective, the field of battle; wavy hnes at the 
 bottom of the bas-reliefs denote water, probably a river, on the 
 
 banks of wMch the battle was fought. The walls of the castle are de¬ 
 fended by archers. Beneath them are Assyrians slaying the conquered. 
 On the opposite side of the castle is a warrior of great distinction, 
 probably the general of the Assyrian army, clothed in a complete 
 shu’t of mail made of Aon scales inlaid uith copper, and falling from 
 
WARRIORS HUNTING THE LION, 
 
78 
 
 THE NINEVEH COURT. 
 
 his neck to his ankles. He is discharging an arrow against the 
 besieged, and is protected by liis shield-bearer. Above his head 
 hovers an eagle. Behind him stands the chariot from which he has 
 dismounted, and a guard of armed men closes the scene. 
 
 This series of bas-reliefs is also remarkable for the minuteness of 
 the details, and for the illustrations it affords of many passages in 
 the Bible. The ornaments of the various arms used by the 
 Assyrians, of their armour, of the trappings of their horses and of 
 their chariots, consisting of the heads of animals, probably i:^ ivory 
 and precious metals, of dyed and figured cloths, of tassels of many 
 colours, and of bells, profusely attached to the harness (many of 
 which have been discovered in the ruins), are especially to be 
 observed. The embroidered trappings are described by Ezekiel as 
 “ the precious cloths for chariots” brought from Hedan (xxvii. 20). 
 
 Both the Jewish and Assyrian armies contained a large number of 
 chariots. Solomon had no less than 1400, for the maintenance of 
 which certain cities were especially appointed (2 Chron. i. 14). 
 Isaiah prophesying of the invasion of Judea by the Ass 3 n'ians, 
 describes a scene very similar to that represented in the bas-reliefs. 
 ‘‘ The choicest valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen 
 shall set themselves in array against the gate ” (xxii. 7). 
 
 The lower division of No. 12.—A singular bas-relief, which ap¬ 
 pears to represent a walled inclosure or castle, and the pavilion of the 
 victorious king. The first is indicated by a circle of battlemented 
 walls with equidistant towers. It is divided into four compart¬ 
 ments, each occupied by figures either preparing for a banquet or 
 a sacrifice—one is slaying a sheep, another appears to be baking 
 bread in an oven, and others are before tables and stands bearing 
 dishes and bowls. Beneath, or in front of the pavihon, is a 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE BAS-RELIEFS. 
 
 79 
 
 groom cleaning a horse, whilst others are feeding at a manger, 
 formed like those still used in the East when horses are picketed 
 out of doors. An attendant stands at the entrance to the pavilion, 
 and behind him are four prisoners bound together and followed by 
 an Assyrian warrior. Above this group are two strange figures dressed 
 in lions’ heads and skins, probably masquers or buffoons. 
 
 The lower division of No. 13.—Male and female prisoners and 
 cattle brought to Assyria after a campaign. The women are tearing 
 their hair and throwing dust upon their heads, usual signs of grief in 
 the East 
 
 The lower divisions of Nos. 14 and 15.—Highly interesting 
 bas-reliefs representing the siege of a city. The king, attended 
 by his shield-bearer, and an eunuch raising the royal parasol, is 
 discharging his arrows against the enemy. On the opposite side 
 is a battering-ram, the force of which the besieged are endeavouring 
 to check by catching it with chains lowered from the walls. The 
 
80 
 
 THE NINEVEH COUET. 
 
 Assyrians are represented as struggling to keep it in its place by 
 hooks. The besieged are also throwing lighted torches upon the 
 artificial tower, from which a projecting spout discharges water to 
 extinguish the fire. Assyrian warriors are mounting to the assault 
 by ladders, whilst others are undermining the fortifications. Some 
 of the besieged are falling wounded from the wall, others still 
 defend their city. Women, tearing their hair, appear to be asking 
 for quarter. An Assyrian warrior, standing behind the battering 
 ram and discharging an arrow, is protected by a large shield of 
 wickerwork, which probably covered the whole of his person. Such 
 shields appear to have been especially used in sieges. 
 
 The paintings running round the chamber above the bas-reliefs 
 represent the king, accompanied by his usual attendants and guards, 
 receiving his vizier—a subject continually pourtrayed on the walls of 
 the Assyrian palaces, and found, in more than one instance, in the 
 ruins of the North-west Palace at Nimroud. The drawings have 
 been carefully made from bas-reliefs in the British Museum, by Mr. 
 Scharf, Sen., and the colours correspond as nearly as possible to the 
 remains discovered. The ornamental borders are also copied from 
 those found at Nimroud ; and the alternate rosettes or patera and 
 winged figures are taken, as in the adjoining hall, from Khorsab4d. 
 
 The ceiling, like that of the central hall, of which it may be 
 said to form a part, has been restored from various ornaments 
 on the existing sculptures discovered in the ruins. 
 
 BKADUCRY and EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFEIAES. 
 
Ve^ti 
 
 FAMHJAKICA 
 
 ofthElkoscuns 
 
 CUBIC CTLnM 
 
 Casadeila 
 StanzaNerii 
 nr de'Bionzi 
 
 fei'seus taien from the 
 hotise with the colored capitals 
 
 X'ySTUS 
 
 Copied from the house of Apollo 
 
 CELLA i 
 
 famtliai<ica,| 
 
 Marine Venus 
 
 Cara della 
 ftamaHeia 
 nr do Bronz: 
 
 CELU a 
 FAMILIAR :CA 
 tom the House oflhe 
 leraale MilsiriiU] ^ 
 
 CULINA 
 
 I C Q B 1 C a L U 
 Jfrcm the house of the scioad 
 
 Musician 
 
 IreSTIBULTM.l 
 
 PROTHYRCnA 
 
 ■ the forum 
 
 POMPEIAN COURT 
 
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 IS-- 
 
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