The suspension had been but partial, for Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, then British Vice-Consul at Mósul, had been empowered to keep a few men still digging at Kouyunjik. He had there unearthed several new sculpture-lined chambers of no small interest. But at Nimroud nothing worthy of mention had been done during Layard’s absence. That was now his first object. |1849, Oct. and Nov.| Kouyunjik, however, for a long time gave the best yield.
In December the south-east façade of the Kouyunjik Palace was uncovered. It was found to be a hundred and eighty feet in length, and contained, among other sculptures, ten colossal bulls and six human figures. The accompanying inscriptions contained the early annals of Sennacherib, and of his wars with Merodach Baladan.[[40]]
Presently, the labours on the north-west palace at Nimroud were also richly rewarded. The somewhat higher antiquity of that building, as compared with the homogeneous structures of Kouyunjik and Khorsabad, had already impressed itself with the force of conviction on Mr. Layard’s individual mind. The fact now became manifest to all eyes that had the capacity to see.
These Nimroud monuments belong,—according to the opinion of the best archæologists,—most of them, to the eighth, some of them, however, to the earlier part of the seventh centuries B.C. They now occupy the most central of the Assyrian Galleries in the British Museum. The monuments of Kouyunjik and of Khorsabad are probably but little anterior to the supposed date (625 B.C.) of the destruction of Nineveh. These are exhibited in galleries adjacent to the ‘Nimroud Central Saloon.’ To describe only a few of them in connection with the interesting circumstances of their respective disclosures would demand another chapter. A word or two, however, must be given to one among the earlier discoveries (October, 1846), and to one among the latest of those made (in the spring of 1851), whilst Mr. Layard himself remained in the neighbourhood of Mósul.
Discovery of the black-marble obelisk, 1846, October (found in centre of the great mound).
At Nimroud many trenches had, in those early days, been opened unprofitably. Mr. Layard doubted whether he ought to carry them further. Half inclined to cease, in this direction, he resolved, finally, that he would not abandon a cutting on which so much money and toil had been spent, until the result of yet another day’s work was shown. |Nineveh and its Remains, vol. i, p. 345. (1849 edit.)| ‘I mounted my horse,’ he says—to ride into Mósul—‘but had scarcely left the mound when a corner of black marble was uncovered, lying on the very edge of the trench.’ It was part of an obelisk seven feet high, lying about ten feet below the surface. Its top was cut into three gradines, covered with wedge-shaped inscriptions. Beneath the gradines were five tiers of sculpture in low-relief, continued on all sides. Between every two tiers of sculpture ran a line of inscription. Beneath the five tiers, the unsculptured surface was covered with inscriptions. These, as subsequent researches have shown, contain the Annals of Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, during thirty-one years towards the close of the ninth century before our Lord. The tributaries of the great monarch are seen in long procession, bearing their offerings. In the appended cuneiform record of these tributaries are mentioned Jehu, ‘of the House of Omri,’ and his contemporary Hazael, King of Syria. |Ibid., 346.| Well may the proud discoverer call his trophy a ‘precious relic.’
We now leap over more than four eventful years. Mr. Layard is about to exchange the often anxious but always glorious toils of the successful archæologist, for the not less anxious and very often exceedingly inglorious toils of the politician. He will also henceforth have to exchange many a pleasant morning ride and many a peaceful evening ‘tobacco-parliament’ with Arabs of the Desert, for turbulent discussions with metropolitan electors, and humble obeisances in order to win their sweet voices. Just before he leaves Mósul come some new unearthings of Assyrian sculpture, to add to the welcome tidings he will carry into England.
The discoveries at Kouyunjik of the spring of 1851.
He found, he tells us—in one of the closing chapters of his latest book—that to the north of the great centre-hall four new chambers, full of sculpture, had been discovered. On the walls of a grand gallery, ninety-six feet by twenty-three, was represented the return of an Assyrian army from a campaign in which they had won loads of spoil and a long array of prisoners. The captured fighting men wore a sort of Phrygian bonnet reversed, short tunics, and broad belts. The women had long tresses and fringed robes. |Discoveries at Nineveh and Babylon (edit. 1853), pp. 582–584.| Sometimes they rode on mules or were drawn—by men as well as by mules—in chariots. The captives were the men and women of Susiana. The victor was Sennacherib.
In several subsequent years—1853, 1854, 1855, when most Englishmen were intently acting, or beholding with suspended breath, the great drama in the Crimea—a famous compatriot was continuing the task so nobly initiated by Austen Layard. Sir Henry Rawlinson (made by this time Consul-General at Baghdad) carried on new excavations, both at Nimroud and at Kouyunjik. In these he was ably assisted by Mr. W. K. Loftus, as well as by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, the helper and early friend of Layard, and (in the later stages) by Mr. Taylor. Another obelisk, with portions of a third and fourth; thirty-four slabs sculptured in low-relief; one statue in the round; and a multitude of smaller objects, illustrating with wonderful diversity and minuteness the manners and customs, the modes of life and of thought, as well as the wars and conquests, the luxury and the cruelty, of the old Assyrians, were among the treasures which, by the collective labour of these distinguished explorers, were sent into Britain. |Early labourers on the deciphering of cuneiform inscriptions.| Another ‘recension,’ so to speak, of the early Annals of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, inscribed upon a cylinder, was not the least interesting of the monuments found under the direction of Sir Henry Rawlinson, whose name had already won its station—many years before his consulship at Baghdad—beside those of Grotefend, of Burnouf and of Lassen, in the roll of those scientific investigators by whose closet labours the researches and long gropings of the Riches, the Bottas, and the Layards, were destined to be interpreted, illustrated, and fructified for the world of readers at large.