Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon

by Austen Henry Layard

To the north of the great centre hall four new chambers had been discovered. The first was 96 feet by 23. On its walls were represented the return of an Assyrian army from war, with their spoil of captives and cattle. The prisoners were distinguished by a cap turned back at the top, not unlike the Phrygian bonnet reversed, short tunics, and a broad belt. The women had long curls falling over their shoulders, and were clothed in fringed robes. The fighting-men of the conquered tribe wore a simple fillet round their short hair; a tunic, falling in front to the knee, and behind, to the calf of the leg; a wavy girdle, and a cross-belt round their breasts, ending in two large tassels. A kneeling camel, receiving its load, was designed with considerable truth and spirit. The legs bent under, the tail raised, the foot of the man on the neck of the animal to keep it from rising, whilst a second adjusts the burden from behind, form a group seen every day in the Desert and in an Eastern town. The camel saddle, too, nearly resembled that still used by the Arabs.

This chamber opened at one end into a small room, 23 feet by 13. On its walls were represented a captive tribe, dressed in short tunics, a skin falling from their shoulders, boots laced up in front, and cross-bands round their legs; they had short, bushy hair and beards.

In the outer chamber two doorways opposite the grand entrances into the great hall, led into a parallel apartment, 62 feet by 16 feet. On its walls was represented the conquest of the same people, wearing the reversed Phrygian bonnet. There were long lines of prisoners; some in carts, others on foot. The fighting-men, armed with bows and quivers, were made to bear part of the spoil. In the costumes of the warriors and captives, and in the forms of the waggons and war-carts, these bas-reliefs bore a striking resemblance to the sculptures of the son of Essarhaddon, described in a previous chapter.[234] It may, therefore, be inferred that the conquest of the same nation was celebrated in both, and that on these walls we have recorded the successful wars of Sennacherib in the country of Susiana or Elam.

This chamber, like the one parallel to it, led at one end into a small room 17 feet square. On its walls, the campaign recorded in the adjoining chamber had been continued. These rooms completed the discoveries on the southern side of the palace. On the northern side of the same edifice, and on the river-face of the platform, one wall of a third great hall had been uncovered; the other walls had not been excavated at the time of my departure from Mosul. From the very ruinous state of this part of the building, and from the small accumulation of earth above the level of the foundations, it is doubtful whether any sculptures still exist in it. The standing wall had three entrances, the centre formed by winged lions, and the others by fish gods. Of the bas-reliefs only fragments now remained. In one set was depictured the conquest of another tribe dwelling in the marshes of southern Mesopotamia. The Assyrians pursued their enemies in wicker boats, such as I have described in my account of the Afaij Arabs; and on the islands formed by the small streams flowing through the morass, were Assyrian warriors on horseback.

On the same side of the hall was represented the conquest of a second nation, whose men were clothed in long garments, and whose women wore turbans, with veils falling to their feet. The Assyrians had plundered their temples, and were seen carrying away their idols. “Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their countries, and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them.”[235] Unfortunately the bas-reliefs were so much injured that the nature of these images could not be satisfactorily ascertained. The figures appeared to be beardless, with the exception of one, which is that of a man raising his right arm, and bearing a mace.

The three entrances led into one chamber 86 feet by 24. On its calcined walls were only the faint traces of bas-reliefs. I could distinguish a line of chariots in a ravine between mountains, warriors throwing logs on a great burning pile of wood, castles on the tops of hills, Assyrians carrying away spoil, amongst which was a royal umbrella, and the king on his throne receiving his army on their return from battle with the captives and booty.

Opposite to and corresponding with the three entrances from the hall were three other doorways leading into a parallel chamber of somewhat smaller dimensions. Parts of four slabs were the only sculptures sufficiently well preserved to be drawn: they represented the siege of a great city, whose many-towered walls were defended by slingers, archers, and spearmen. The king himself in his chariot was present at the attack. Around him were his warriors and his led-horses.

Three more chambers were discovered in this part of the building. They were on the very edge of the river-face of the mound. The walls of the outer room had been almost entirely destroyed. An entrance, formed by colossal winged figures, led from it into a second chamber, about 24 feet square, in which the sculptures were still partly preserved. Amongst the bas-reliefs was another battle in a marsh. The Assyrian warriors were seen fighting in boats, and bringing their captives to the shore, one of the vessels being towed by a man swimming on an inflated skin. Sennacherib himself, in his chariot, in the midst of a grove of palm-trees, received the prisoners, and the heads of the slain. Above him was a short epigraph, which appears to read, “Sennacherib, king of the country of Assyria, the spoil of the river Agammi, from the city of Sakrina” (the last line not interpreted). Although the name of this city has not yet been found, as far as I know, in the records on the bulls and on other monuments of the same king, yet the mention of the river enables us to recognise in the bas-reliefs a representation of part of the campaign, undertaken by Sennacherib, in the fourth year of his reign, against Susubira the Chaldæan: whose capital was Bittul, on the same stream. Although the river itself has not as yet been identified, it is evidently either a part of the Tigris or Euphrates, or one of their confluents, near the Persian Gulf. We have no difficulty, indeed, in determining the site of the country whose conquest is depictured. The marshes and palm-trees show that it must have been in southern Mesopotamia, or in the districts watered by the Shat el Arab.

A great retinue of charioteers and horsemen appear to have followed Sennacherib to this war. Large circular shields were fixed to the sides of the chariots represented in the sculptures.

The third chamber, entered from that last described through a doorway guarded by colossal eagle-footed figures, contained the sculptured records of the conquest of part of Babylonia, or of some other district to the south of it. Long lines of chariots, horsemen and warriors, divided into companies according to their arms and their costume, accompanied the king. The Assyrians having taken the principal city of the invaded country, cut down the palm-trees within and without its walls. Men beating drums, such as are still seen in the same country, and women clapping their hands in cadence to their song, came out to greet the conquerors. Beneath the walls was represented a great caldron, which appears to have been supported upon metal images of oxen; perhaps a vessel resembling the brazen sea of the temple of Solomon.[236]