Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
from a photograph by Mansell.
The king chose Ninip, the god of war, as the patron of the city, and dedicated to him, at the north-west corner of the terrace, a ziggurât with its usual temple precincts. Here the god was represented as a bull with a man’s head and bust in gilded alabaster, and two yearly feasts were instituted in his honour, one in the month Sebat, the other in the month Ulul. The ziggurât was a little over two hundred feet high, and was probably built in seven stages, of which only one now remains intact: around it are found several independent series of chambers and passages, which may have been parts of other temples, but it is now impossible to say which belonged to the local Belît, which to Sin, to Gula, to Rammân, or to the ancient deity Râ. At the entrance to the largest chamber, on a rectangular pedestal, stood a stele with rounded top, after the Egyptian fashion. On it is depicted a figure of the king, standing erect and facing to the left of the spectator; he holds his mace at his side, his right hand is raised in the attitude of adoration, and above him, on the left upper edge of the stele, are grouped the five signs of the planets; at the base of the stele stands an altar with a triangular pedestal and circular slab ready for the offerings to be presented to the royal founder by priests or people. The palace extended along the south side of the terrace facing the town, and with the river in its rear; it covered a space one hundred and thirty-one yards in length and a hundred and nine in breadth. In the centre was a large court, surrounded by seven or eight spacious halls, appropriated to state functions; between these and the court were many rooms of different sizes, forming the offices and private apartments of the royal house. The whole palace was built of brick faced with stone. Three gateways, flanked by winged, human-headed bulls, afforded access to the largest apartment, the hall of audience, where the king received his subjects or the envoys of foreign powers.* The doorways and walls of some of the rooms were decorated with glazed tiles, but the majority of them were covered with bands of coloured** bas-reliefs which portrayed various episodes in the life of the king—his state-councils, his lion hunts, the reception of tribute, marches over mountains and rivers, chariot-skirmishes, sieges, and the torture and carrying away of captives.
* At the east end of the hall Layard found a block of
alabaster covered with inscriptions, forming a sort of
platform on which the king’s throne may have stood.
** Layard points out the traces of colouring still visible
when the excavations were made.
Incised in bands across these pictures are inscriptions extolling the omnipotence of Assur, while at intervals genii with eagles’ beaks, or deities in human form, imperious and fierce, appear with hands full of offerings, or in the act of brandishing thunderbolts against evil spirits. The architect who designed this imposing decoration, and the sculptors who executed it, closely followed the traditions of ancient Chaldæa in the drawing and composition of their designs, and in the use of colour or chisel; but the qualities and defects peculiar to their own race give a certain character of originality to this borrowed art. They exaggerated the stern and athletic aspect of their models, making the figure thick-set, the muscles extraordinarily enlarged, and the features ludicrously accentuated.
Drawn by Boudier, after Layard.
Their pictures produce an impression of awkwardness, confusion and heaviness, but the detail is so minute and the animation so great that the attention of the spectator is forcibly arrested; these uncouth beings impress us with the sense of their self-reliance and their confidence in their master, as we watch them brandishing their weapons or hurrying to the attack, and see the shock of battle and the death-blows given and received. The human-headed bulls, standing on guard at the gates, exhibit the calm and pensive dignity befitting creatures conscious of their strength, while the lions passant who sometimes replace them, snarl and show their teeth with an almost alarming ferocity.
