[263] Mr. Layard intended to give accurate and complete drawings of all the bas-reliefs at Bavian. For that purpose he despatched to the valley a young artist named Bell, who had been sent out to him by the authorities of the British Museum. Unhappily, this young man was drowned while bathing in the torrent, in July, 1851. Before his death he seems only to have copied the great relief; hence, in Layard’s great work Bavian is represented only by the plate we have copied. In the Discoveries a few additional sketches are given.
[264] Page 203.
[265] In the valley of the Nahr-el-Kelb, there are five or six Assyrian reliefs mingled with those of Egyptian origin. They may at once be distinguished from the works of the Rameses by their arched tops. The only one of which the inscriptions are still legible, is that of Esarhaddon (see Monuments inédits de l’Institut de Correspondance archéologique, 1858, plate 51, fig. F, and especially Lepsius, Ægyptische Denkmæler, part iii. plate 197, fig. D). Judging from their style and the historical information we possess, these steles may be attributed to Tiglath-Pilezer, Assurnazirpal, Shalmaneser II., and Sennacherib. The remaining figures must be referred to other princes. Quite lately Mr. Boscawen has published an interesting article (The Monuments and Inscriptions on the Rocks at Nahr-el-Kelb) in the seventh volume of the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology (pp. 331–352). It is accompanied by a general view of the site, and a very careful plan of that part of the valley in which the Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions are to be found. Professor Lortet has also paid a recent visit to the valley. We are indebted to one of his photographs for our fig. 122 (Tour du Monde, 1882, p. 415). We should have expected to find traces of these Assyrian rock-sculptures on the shores of Lake Van, where the princes of Nineveh so often appeared as conquerors: so far, however, nothing beyond cuneiform inscriptions has been found. There are no royal effigies (Schulze, Mémoire sur le Lac de Van, in the Journal Asiatique for April-June, 1840, and Layard, Discoveries, chapter xviii.).
[266] Layard, Discoveries, p. 369.
[267] Place, Ninive, vol. ii. p. 154.
[268] See vol. i. page 75, and fig. 13.
[269] The bas-reliefs of Malthaï have been described by Layard (Nineveh, vol. i. pp. 230, 231), and, with greater minuteness, by Place (Ninive, vol. ii. pp. 153–160). The latter alone gives a reproduction of them, made from photographs. Between the two accounts there is one considerable discrepancy: Layard speaks of four groups of nine figures each, Place of three only.
[270] Other cylinders belonging to the same group will be found reproduced in Layard Recherches sur le Culte de Vénus, notably in plate iv. figs. 9–12.
[271] French National Library, No. 710.
[272] Florence Museum.