MAP of the ASSYRIAN EMPIRE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRIES
London; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. F.S. Weller, F.S.G.S.
The investigation was soon taken up by Mr Austen Henry Layard, our own countryman, and the objects found were brought to the British Museum, which now boasts a splendid collection. After getting over preliminary difficulties—the interesting story of which may be found in his volumes on “Nineveh and its Remains”—Mr Layard obtained a grant of money from the Museum, with full licence from the Turkish Government, and then succeeded in organizing a band of Arabs to work willingly and well, and from that moment made new discoveries every day.
One morning, as he was going to the scene of operations—they were digging in the mound of Nimroud—two Arabs galloped up to him, and said, “Hasten, O Bey, hasten to the diggers, for they have found Nimrod himself! Wallah, it is wonderful, but it is true; we have seen him with our eyes! There is no God but God!” What they had seen was a sculptured human head, which, upon removing more earth, was seen to belong to a winged quadruped—one of those colossal “bulls” since deposited at the British Museum. A “bull” we say, but really a monster with the body of a bull (sometimes the body of a lion), the head of a man, and the wings of an eagle—the Assyrian idea of the cherubim. Many of these objects were surrounded by writing in the curious cuneiform or arrow-headed character.
WINGED HUMAN-HEADED BULL. (N.-W. Palace, Nimrod.)
Besides these so-called bulls, Mr Layard found obelisks of black basalt, with figures in low relief representing tribute being brought to the Assyrian kings. On the black obelisk in the British Museum—found in the central mound of Nimroud, amid the ruins of Shalmaneser’s palace—occurs the name and figure of Jehu, king of Israel, as bringing tribute to Shalmaneser II. (about B.C. 842). “I have received the tribute of Jehu, the son of Omri; silver, gold, bowls of gold, chalices of gold, cups of gold, pails of gold, lead, sceptres for the hand of the king, (and) spear-shafts.” The mistake indeed is made of calling him “Jehu, son of Omri;” Jehu sat upon the throne of Omri, but he was a usurper and not of Omri’s house. The tribute bearers on this obelisk carry golden cups and goblets, bars of the precious metals, and other valuable things. Rev. H. G. Tomkins, speaking of these Assyrian sculptured portraits of Jehu and his princes, says they have “strong aquiline features, and that peculiar shrug or quirk of the nostril which gives a shrewd and sinister look to many a Jew of London streets. In drawing one of these familiar faces from the monument, I was ready to believe that it belonged to a lineal ancestor of the London ‘Clo’ men.’ The bag falling down the stooping back deepened this impression.”[51]
BLACK OBELISK.