Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon

by Austen Henry Layard

The name of the river in this inscription very nearly resembles that of the small stream which sweeps round the foot of the great mound of Kouyunjik.

In the fragment of another epigraph, we have mention of some objects also of wood “brought from Mount Lebanon, and taken up (to the top of the mound) from the Tigris.” These may have been beams of cedar, which, it will be hereafter seen, were extensively used in the Assyrian palaces. It is highly interesting thus to find the inhabitants of Nineveh fetching their rare and precious woods from the same spots that king Solomon had brought the choicest woodwork of the temple of the Lord and of his own palaces.

On a third fragment similar objects are described as coming from or up the same Kharri or Khasri. I have mentioned that the long gallery containing the bas-relief representing the moving of the great stone, led out of a chamber, whose walls had been completely uncovered. The sculptures upon them were partly preserved, and recorded the conquest of a city standing on a broad river, in the midst of mountains and forests.

The last bas-relief of the series represented the king seated within a fortified camp, on a throne of elaborate workmanship, and having beneath his feet a footstool of equally elegant form. He was receiving the captives, who wore long robes falling to their ankles. Unfortunately, no inscription remained by which we might identify the conquered nation.

It will be remembered that excavations had been resumed in a lofty mound in the north-west line of walls forming the enclosure round Kouyunjik. It was apparently the remains of a gate leading into this quarter of the city, and part of a building, with fragments of two colossal winged figures, had already been discovered in it. By the end of November, the whole had been explored, and the results were of considerable interest. As the mound rises nearly fifty feet over the plain, we were obliged to tunnel along the walls of the building within it, through a compact mass of rubbish, consisting almost entirely of loose bricks. Following the rows of low limestone slabs, from the south side of the mound, and passing through two halls or chambers, we came at length to the opposite entrance. This gateway, facing the open country, was formed by a pair of majestic human-headed bulls, fourteen feet in length, still entire, though cracked and injured by fire. They were similar in form to those of Khorsabad and Kouyunjik, wearing the lofty head-dress, richly ornamented with rosettes, and edged with a fringe of feathers peculiar to that period. Their faces were in full, and the relief was high and bold. More knowledge of art was shown in the outline of the limbs and in the delineation of the muscles, than in any sculpture I have seen of this period. The naked leg and foot were designed with a spirit and truthfulness worthy of a Greek artist. It is, however, remarkable that the four figures were unfinished, none of the details having been put in, and parts being but roughly outlined.

The sculptures to the left, on entering from the open country, were in a far more unfinished state than those on the opposite side. The hair and beard were but roughly marked out, square bosses being left for carving the elaborate curls. The horned cap of the human-headed bull was, as yet, unornamented, and the wings merely outlined. The limbs and features were hard and angular, still requiring to be rounded off, and to have expression given to them by the finishing touch of the artist. The other two figures were more perfect. No inscription had yet been carved on either sculpture.

The entrance formed by these colossal bulls was fourteen feet and a quarter wide. It was paved with large slabs of limestone, still bearing the marks of chariot wheels. The sculptures were buried in a mass of brick and earth, mingled with charcoal and charred wood; for “the gates of the land had been set wide open unto the enemy, and the fire had devoured the bars.”[44] They were lighted from above by a deep shaft sunk from the top of the mound. It would be difficult to describe the effect produced, or the reflections suggested by these solemn and majestic figures, dimly visible amidst the gloom, when, after winding through the dark, underground passages, you suddenly came into their presence. Between them Sennacherib and his hosts had gone forth in all their might and glory to the conquest of distant lands, and had returned rich with spoil and captives, amongst whom may have been the handmaidens and wealth of Israel. Through them, too, the Assyrian monarch had entered his capital in shame, after his last and fatal defeat. Then the lofty walls, now but long lines of low, wave-like mounds, had stretched far to the right and to the left—a basement of stone supporting a curtain of solid brick masonry, crowned with battlements and studded with frowning towers.

Behind the colossal figures, and between the outer and inner face of the gateway, were two chambers, nearly 70 feet in length, by 23 in breadth. Of that part of the entrance which was within the walls, only the fragments of winged figures, discovered during my previous researches, now remained.

The whole entrance thus consisted of two distinct chambers and three gateways, two formed by human-headed bulls, and a third between them simply panelled with low limestone slabs like the chambers. Its original height, including the tower, must have been full one hundred feet. Most of the baked bricks found amongst the rubbish bore the name of Sennacherib, the builder of the palace of Kouyunjik. A similar gateway, but without any remains of sculptured figures, and panelled with plain alabaster slabs, was subsequently discovered in the inner line of walls forming the eastern side of the quadrangle, where the road to Baashiekhah and Baazani leaves the ruins.

At Nimroud discoveries of very considerable importance were made in the high conical mound at the north-west corner. Desirous of fully exploring that remarkable ruin, I had employed nearly all the workmen in opening a tunnel into its western base. After penetrating for no less than eighty-four feet through a compact mass of rubbish, composed of loose gravel, earth, burnt bricks, and fragments of stone, the excavators came to a wall of solid stone masonry. I have already observed that the edifice covered by this high mound was originally built upon the natural rock, a bank of hard conglomerate rising about fifteen feet above the plain, and washed in days of yore by the waters of the Tigris. Our tunnel was carried for thirty-four feet on a level with this rock, which appears to have been covered by a kind of flooring of sun-dried bricks, probably once forming a platform in front of the building. It was buried to the distance of thirty feet from the wall, by baked bricks, broken and entire, and by fragments of stone, remains of the superstructure once resting upon the basement of still existing stone masonry. This mass of rubbish was about thirty feet high, and in it were found bones apparently human, and a yellow earthen jar, rudely colored with simple black designs. The rest of this part of the mound consisted of earth, through which ran two thin lines of extraneous deposit, one of pebbles, the other of fragments of brick and pottery. I am totally at a loss to account for their formation.