File:Nineveh and Babylon - a narrative of a second expedition to Assyria during the years 1849, 1850, and 1851 (1882) (14764099821).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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mcharacter, and of precisely the same import They appearto record certain extensive works for irrigation undertakenby that monarch, and his expedition against MerodachBaladan, and the capture and plunder of Babylon, mentionedin the records on the bulls at Nineveh. A very remark-able passage, if rightly interpreted, states that Sennacheribbrought back to Assyria certain images of the gods whichhad been carried away 418 years before by a king of Mesopotamia. If this be the true interpretation, it shows thatat that remote period the Assyrians kept an exact compu-tation of time. Sennacherib declares that, on his return 72 NINEVEH AND BABYLON. (Chap. from Babylon, he had caused these tablets to be carved inthe rock. Beneath the sculptured tablets, and in the bed of theGomel, are two enormous fragments of rock, which havefallen from the overhanging cliff into the torrent below.The pent-up waters eddy round them in deep and dangerouswhirlpools, and when swollen by the winter rains sweep com-
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Fallen Rock-SculiJtvires. (Bavian.) pletely over them.* They still bear the remains of sculpture.One has been broken by the fall into two pieces. On itis the Assyrian Hercules strangling the lion between twowinged human-headed bulls, back to back, as at the grandentrances of the palaces of Kouyunjik and Khorsabad. * It was at this spot that Mr. Pell, the youthful artist sent out by theTrustees of the British Museum, was unfortunately drowned when l)ath-ing, in the month of July, 1^51, shortly after my departure from Mosul. III.) SCULPTURES AT BAVIAN. 73 Above this group is the king, worshipping between twodeities, who stand on mythic animals with the heads ofeagles, the bodies and fore feet of lions, and hind legsarmed with the talons of a bird of prey. Near the entrance to the ravine the face of the cliff hasbeen scarped for some yards to the level of the bed of the

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