File:Nineveh and Babylon - a narrative of a second expedition to Assyria during the years 1849, 1850, and 1851 (1882) (14744249426).jpg

Identifier: ninevehbabylonna00laya (find matches)
Title: Nineveh and Babylon : a narrative of a second expedition to Assyria during the years 1849, 1850, & 1851
Year: 1882 (1880s)
Authors: Layard, Austen Henry, Sir, 1817-1894
Subjects: Nineveh (Extinct city) Babylon (Extinct city) Middle East -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : J. Murray
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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nto a further room, of which only a small part had beenexplored.t The walls were panelled with unsculptured slabsof the same compact limestone. The sculptured remains hitherto discovered in the moundof Kouyimjik had been reached by digging down to them fromthe surface. The accumulation of rubbish was, however, soconsiderable in this part of the ruins, frequently exceedingthirty feet, that the workmen, to avoid the labour of clearingit away, began to tunnel along the buried walls, sinking shaftsat intervals to admit light and air. The underground pas-sages were narrow, and were propped up when necessaryeither by leaving columns of soil, as in mines, or by wooden * No. LI. Plan I. + No. Liii. Plan I. NINEVEH AND BABYLON. (Chap. beams. These long galleries, dimly lighted, and lined withthe remains of ancient art—the wild Arabs and Nestorianswandering through their intricacies, or working in their darkrecesses—were singularly picturesque. Toma Shishman had removed the workmen from the
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UiKkrgroiind Excavations at Kouyunjik. southern corner of the mound, where the sculptures weremuch injured, and had opened tunnels in a part of the build-ing previously e.xplored, commencing where I had left off in1847.* I descended into the underground passages by an in-clined way, through which the workmen issued with the rubbish* Ko. VI. Plan I. p. 4. 1.) NEIV CHAMBERS DISCOVERED. 7 dug out from the ruins. At the bottom I found myself beforea wall forming the southern side of the great hall, discovered,though only partly explored, during my former researches.The sculptured slabs faintly seen through the gloom, althoughalmost reduced to lime by the fire which had destroyed thepalace, were still fairly preserved. They had been entirelycovered with figures, varying from three inches to one foot inheight, carefully finished, and designed ■with great spirit. In this series of bas-reliefs the history of an Assyrian con-quest was more fully portrayed than in any other yet dis-covered, f

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