In the centre of the palace was a great hall, or rather court, for it had probably been without a roof and open to the air, with entrances on the four sides, each formed by colossal human-headed lions and bulls. To the south of this hall was a cluster of small chambers, opening into each other. At the entrance to one of them were two winged human figures wearing garlands, and carrying a wild goat and an ear of corn.
In another chamber were discovered a number of beautiful ivory ornaments, now in the British Museum. On two slabs, forming an entrance to a small chamber in this part of the building, some inscriptions containing the name of Sargon, the king who built the Khorsabad palace. They had been cut above the standard inscription, to which they were evidently posterior.
IV.—Kouyunjik
Having finished my work at Nimroud, I turned my attention to Kouyunjik. The term means in Turkish "the little sheep." The great mount is situated on the plain near the junction of the Khausser and the Tigris, the former winding round its base and then making its way into the great stream.
The French consul had carried on desultory excavations some years at Kouyunjik, without finding any traces of buildings. I set my workmen commencing operations by the proper method of digging deep trenches. One morning, as I was at Mosul, two Arab women came to me and announced that sculptures had been discovered.
I rode to the ruins, and found that a wall and the remains of an entrance had been reached. The wall proved to be one side of a chamber. By following it, we reached an entrance, formed by winged human-headed bulls, leading into a second hall. In a month nine halls and chambers had been explored. In its architecture the newly discovered edifice resembled the palaces of Nimroud and Khorsabad. The halls were long and narrow, the walls of unbaked brick and panelled with sculptured slabs.
The king whose name is on the sculptures and bricks from Kouyunjik was the father of Esarhaddon, the builder of the south-west palace at Nimroud, and the son of Sargon, the Khorsabad king, and is now generally admitted to be Sennacherib.
By the middle of the month of June my labours in Assyria drew to a close. The time assigned for the excavations had been expended, and further researches were not contemplated for the present. I prepared, therefore, to turn my steps homeward after an absence of many years. The ruins of Nimroud had been again covered up, and its palaces were once more hidden from the eye.