Koldewey and Andrae did not however confine their attention to the ruined mounds of Babylonia, but in 1903 commenced excavations at Ḳalat Sherḳat, the site of Ashur, Assyria’s ancient capital, and the name of the god from whom Assyria derives her name. As early as 1852 Sir Henry Layard had conducted excavations on this site, the chief tangible result of which was the discovery of Tiglath-Pileser I’s clay cylinders, though fragments of bas-reliefs and other inscriptions were also discovered here both by Layard and Rassam. Shalmaneser I (circ. 1300 B.C.) had transferred the seat of his government from Ashur to Calah, but his successor Tukulti-Ninib (circ. 1275 B.C.) restored the capital of the empire to Ashur. The mounds which mark the site of this ancient city are to a great extent of natural formation (cf. Pl. [VIII]), thereby differing from most of the ruined mounds in Mesopotamia, which owe their existence to artificial formation. From September 1903 to April 1904 operations were of a tentative character and consisted of trial trenches, but in April 1904 the Germans commenced excavating the large mound of mud-brick, the ziggurat, the eastern plateau, and the large court of Ashur’s temple, part of the fortification-wall also receiving attention, while the main work centred round the palace-buildings of Shalmaneser I (circ. 1300 B.C.). The great temple of Ashur, built or restored by Ushpia, an early ruler of the city who antedates Irishum, is situated in the north-east corner, and it adjoins the palace of Shalmaneser I. The ziggurat or stage-tower lies to the west-south-west, and the palace of Ashur-naṣir-pal adjoins the temple of Anu and Adad, which would appear to be the best preserved building in Ashur. Various other buildings have been discovered, of which the temple of Nebo and the palace of Tukulti-Ninib I (circ. 1275 B.C.) may be specially mentioned. Numerous graves were found of various kinds, those with brick walls being undoubtedly Assyrian. Many valuable historical inscriptions were found, while the discovery of a wall-decoration consisting of a series of rosettes was another interesting result. The so-called “Mushlala” of Adad-nirari I (circ. 1325 B.C.), according to whom it formed a part of the temple of Ashur, was found to be identical with that restored by Sennacherib with “mountain-stone,” and afterwards repaired by Esarhaddon (681-668 B.C.) with “pîlu”-stone. The foundations of the building situated at the southern side of the eastern plateau proved to be of very great depth, while the plan of the building itself is said to closely resemble the early Babylonian type. The temple of Ashur the great lord of Assyria is alluded to by Irishum, king of Assyria (circ. 2000 B.C.), by Shamshi-Adad who calls himself builder of the temple of Ashur, by Adad-nirari and by Shalmaneser I. In Shalmaneser I’s reign it was destroyed by fire, and that king undertook its restoration. An inscription of Tiglath-Pileser II informs us that he decorated the temple with enamelled bricks. Some of these inscriptions were found “in situ” thus fixing the precise locus of Ashur’s famous shrine. The temple was situated at the extreme north of the city, three of its sides overlooking the open country and the fourth over-towered by the ziggurat. Remains of Shalmaneser’s work have been found in the foundation and pavement constructed by that king, and some of the enamelled bricks which decorated the buildings of Sargon have also been recovered, while the pavement of the great court, as well as pieces of enamelled brick and the clay cones of Tiglath-Pileser II have been brought to light. The temple itself was originally high above the level of the street. A second smaller ziggurat was further found, which proved to be a part of the temple of Anu and Adad, and the work of three distinct periods has been traced in this structure.[29] Of interesting relics here unearthed, we may specifically mention a three-pronged thunderbolt of wood sheathed with gold.
The remains of various palaces have been unearthed including those of Adad-nirari and Shalmaneser I, and the royal residence of Tukulti-Ninib has been also excavated. Many tablets were recovered, and a pot containing 113 unbaked clay tablets was also brought to light: the tablets are written in a script characteristic of the time of Tiglath-Pileser I, and are chiefly concerned with receipts for cattle. Much pottery was unearthed, together with a variety of objects including some Roman imperial coins of the second century. The northern part of the city was that which was favoured by the Assyrian kings, and accordingly contains the remains of several temples and palaces, but the ruins of private houses are perhaps of even greater interest than the palaces of kings and the abodes of the gods. They are small in size, but were evidently carefully drained. Within the houses a number of graves were discovered, apparently belonging to the same period as the houses themselves. In many cases the excavators state that they found clear traces of cremation in the graves. Seven distinctly different kinds of graves were found at Ashur—vaults, clay sarcophagi, baked clay trays placed over the corpse, jars, brick graves, potsherd graves, and earth graves. The vaults[30] are of various shapes and dimensions, are made of burnt brick, and consist generally of a fairly spacious chamber and an entrance shaft. The bodies—always more than one in each vault—lay on the floor in a contracted position, surrounded with drinking vessels of every description, and in all cases there was a small niche for a lamp. The clay sarcophagi show even greater varieties, including jars into which the bodies were pressed, and tubs both high and short into which the corpse was placed in a seated position, while both of these classes comprise many different types.
Another class of jar-burial, known as the “capsule,” consisted in two jars drawn over the feet and head respectively and pressed together till they met, thus forming a “capsule.” The Brick-graves were practically Brick-sarcophagi, the graves being built coffin-wise, but few of these have been found. The Potsherd graves are so called from the use of potsherds to cover the corpse. Apparently these various methods of burial coexisted at the same time, and they accordingly cannot be classified into periods, as is the case to some extent in early Egypt.
Concerning the fortifications of the city, the inscriptions of the various kings who built, repaired, or rebuilt these, afford us a good deal of information, but the excavations themselves have not up to the present told us as much as we could desire. Shalmaneser II’s work of restoration on the southern wall has been identified by the clay-cones of that king found in the upper part of the wall, while in some of his inscriptions Shalmaneser calls himself the builder of the “Dûru” itself. The quay-wall built by Adad-nirari I, restored by Adad-nirari II, and later on by Adad-nirari III, has been excavated for nearly 490 yards of its length; it is built of blocks of limestone and is faced with brick on the river-side, coherency being added to the whole by an ample employment of asphalt and clay-mortar. Part of the city-moat built by Tukulti-Ninib I has also been found, the excavations having further revealed the restoration of the city-wall, for which Ashur-naṣir-pal was probably responsible.
The year 1908 saw the excavation of the temple erected in honour of the god Nebo at Ashur by Sin-shar-ishkun, the last king of Assyria (circ. 615 B.C.).[31] The general ground-plan of this late Assyrian temple was found to correspond to that of the Anu-Adad temple, and also to that of the temple built by Sargon at Khorsabad.[32] Numerous stelæ and other monuments of stone were recovered from the ruins of Ashur; they include a basalt stele of Tukulti-Ninib,[33] a stele of Tiglath-Pileser III, and another of Ashur-resh-ishi II,[34] a limestone stele of Ashur-naṣir-pal, an alabaster stele with the representation of a king adoring a god and goddess, which in some way resembles the Bavian relief of Sennacherib,[35] and fragments of a diorite sculpture[36] with small figures recalling the style of art characteristic of the Khammurabi period. The interest of these monuments is chiefly centred in the inscriptions which throw new light upon the number and order of the Assyrian kings.
Meanwhile the Americans, whose excavations in Babylonia had been inaugurated with so much promise, had again taken the field. On Christmas day 1903 an expedition sent out by the Oriental Exploration Fund of the University of Chicago, under the directorship of Professor R. F. Harper (E. J. Banks as field-director) commenced excavations at Bismâya, the name of a group of mounds situated between the Tigris and Euphrates, and due south of Bagdad. The mounds are very extensive, measuring about a mile in length and half a mile in breadth, but their altitude is very low compared with that of other mounds, such as Erech, Nippur (cf. Pl. [X]) or Borsippa. The temple was the first building at Bismâya to receive attention, partly owing to the fact that it happened to be concealed beneath one of the loftiest of the Bismayân mounds, and partly because the general shape of the mound suggested the possible existence of a stage-tower beneath its ruined débris. Trenches dug on all sides of the mound towards the centre soon revealed the lower storey of one of these temple towers, the second storey of which had disappeared, though some of the burnt bricks which formed its outer casing were found lying about. The surviving lower stage consisted in crude bricks and clay, but was provided with a facing of burnt brick some four feet thick. Many of these casing bricks were inscribed with the name of Dungi, king of Ur (circ. 2400 B.C.). Beneath the bricks of Dungi was found another layer of burnt bricks, some of which bore the name of Ur-Engur, Dungi’s immediate predecessor on the throne of Ur. Of small objects unearthed, the three most interesting were a thin strip of gold found about two feet below the baked bricks of Dungi, and bearing the name of the renowned Nârâm-Sin, the son of Shar-Gâni-sharri of Agade, and the second was a small white marble statuette found at no great distance from the strip of gold, and conforming to the style of art characteristic of the age of Narêm-Sin, while the third was another marble statue belonging to the earliest Sumerian period, and closely resembling those excavated in the lowest strata at Tellô (Lagash). This statue (cf. Fig. [32]) is probably unique as a statue in the round belonging to so early a period, and is especially noticeable for the fact that the arms are in this case entirely free from the body, and carved altogether in the round.
Just below the place where the gold of Narâm-Sin was recovered, large bricks about 18 inches square and belonging to the age of Shar-Gâni-sharri were found, while numerous inscriptions of this same king were forthcoming from some of the other mounds at Bismâya. Beneath the large Sargonic bricks there was a layer of thin oblong and finger-marked bricks, while lower still, some five feet below the surface, small plano-convex bricks set in bitumen were brought to light.
A great number of vase fragments made of marble, porphyry, granite, alabaster and onyx, together with innumerable objects made of ivory, mother of pearl, metal and stone were found round about the temple tower.
In regard to the temple itself, an entrance was discovered on the south-east side, the principal remaining features of which were the marble gate-socket supported on two slabs of pink marble. At the south corner, an oval-shaped room was brought to light, which was once covered with a dome-shaped roof. But the base of the temple tower had depths even below the stratum containing the small plano-convex bricks, which yet remained to be fathomed.
Some sixteen or seventeen feet below the surface a large metal spike (cf. Fig. [40]) terminating in a lion’s head was recovered, while much lower still, about thirty-nine to forty feet below the level of the mound a number of fragments of wheel-made black pottery were revealed. The date of this wheel-made pottery is of course unknown, but judging from the depth at which it was found, Dr. Banks, the Field-director of the expedition, suggests a date of 10,000 B.C. In the same year (1903) in which these successful excavations were being carried on at Bismâya, Nineveh, the ruined mounds of which once-famous city had already yielded such a rich harvest to the great pioneers in the field of Mesopotamian exploration, received further attention at the hands of the Trustees of the British Museum, who sent out an expedition under Messrs. L. W. King and R. C. Thompson, with a view to the further excavation of the Kouyunjik mound. The principal result of the excavations carried on there between the years 1903 and 1905 was the discovery of the site of Nabû’s temple, which had however been so ruthlessly destroyed—presumably by the Elamites—that no complete plan of the temple could be made.