DISCOVERIES AT KOUYUNJIK DURING THE SUMMER.--DESCRIPTION OF THE
SCULPTURES.--CAPTURE OF CITIES ON A GREAT RIVER.--POMP OF ASSYRIAN
KING.--ALABASTER PAVEMENT.--CONQUEST OF TRIBES INHABITING A
MARSH.--THEIR WEALTH.--CHAMBERS WITH SCULPTURES BELONGING TO A NEW
KING.--DESCRIPTION OF THE SCULPTURES.--CONQUEST OF THE PEOPLE OF
SUSIANA.--PORTRAIT OF THE KING.--HIS GUARDS AND ATTENDANTS.--THE CITY
OF SHUSHAN.--CAPTIVE PRINCE.--MUSICIANS.--CAPTIVES PUT TO THE
TORTURE.--ARTISTIC CHARACTER OF THE SCULPTURES.--AN INCLINED
PASSAGE.--TWO SMALL CHAMBERS.--COLOSSAL FIGURES.--MORE SCULPTURES.
Whilst I had been absent in the mountains the excavations had been
continued at Kouyunjik, notwithstanding the summer heats. Nearly all the
Arabs employed in the spring at Nimroud had been removed to these ruins,
and considerable progress had consequently been made in clearing the earth
from them. Several chambers, discovered before I left Mosul, had been
emptied, and new rooms with interesting sculptures had been explored.
It has been seen that the narrow passage leading out of the south-west
corner of the great hall containing the bas-reliefs representing the
moving of the winged bulls turned to the left, and by another gallery
connected this part of the edifice with a second hall of even larger
proportions than that first discovered.
The sculptures panelling the western wall were for the most part still
entire. They recorded, as usual, a campaign and a victory, and were
probably but a portion of one continuous subject carried round the entire
hall. The conquered country appeared to have been traversed by a great
river, the representation of which took up a third of the bas-relief.
Next came the siege and capture of a city standing on the opposite bank of
the same great river, and surrounded by a ditch edged with lofty reeds.
The Assyrian footmen and cavalry had already crossed this dike, and were
closely pressing the besieged, who, no longer seeking to defend
themselves, were asking for quarter. On the other side of the river,
Sennacherib in his gorgeous war chariot, and surrounded by his guards,
received the captives and the spoil. It is remarkable that this was almost
the only figure of the king which had not been wantonly mutilated,
probably by those who overthrew the Assyrian empire, burned its palaces,
and levelled its cities with the dust.[177]
In this bas-relief the furniture of the horses was particularly rich and
elaborate. Above the yoke rose a semicircular ornament, set round with
stars, and containing the image of a deity. The chariot of the Assyrian
monarch, his retinue, and his attire, accurately corresponded with the
descriptions given by Xenophon of those of Cyrus, when he marched out of
his palace in procession, and by Quintus Curtius of those of Darius, when
he went to battle in the midst of his army. The Greek general had seen the
pomp of the Persian kings, and could describe it as an eye-witness.[178]
The description of Quintus Curtius is no less illustrative of the Assyrian
monuments. "The doryphori (a chosen body of spearmen) preceded the
chariot, on either side of which were the effigies of the gods in gold and
silver. The yoke was inlaid with the rarest jewels. _From it projected two
golden figures of Ninus and Belus_, each a cubit in length.... The king
was distinguished from all those who surrounded him, by the magnificence
of his robes, and by the cidaris or mitre upon his head. By his side
walked two hundred of his relations. Ten thousand warriors bearing spears,
whose staffs were of silver and heads of gold, followed the royal chariot.
The king's led horses, forty in number, concluded the procession."[179]
Allowing for a little exaggeration on the part of the historian, and for
the conventional numbers used by the Assyrian sculptor to represent large
bodies of footmen and cavalry, we might suppose that Quintus Curtius had
seen the very bas-reliefs I am describing, so completely do they tally
with his description of the appearance and retinue of the Persian king.
The captives, bearing skins probably containing water and flour to nourish
them during a long and harassing march, were fettered in pairs, and urged
onwards by their guards. The women were partly on foot, and partly with
their children on mules and in carts drawn by oxen. Mothers were
represented holding the water-skins for their young ones to quench their
thirst, whilst in some instances fathers had placed their weary children
on their shoulders, for they were marching during the heat of a
Mesopotamian summer, as the sculptor had shown by introducing large
clusters of dates on the palms. Thus were driven the inhabitants of
Samaria through the Desert to Halah and Habor, by the river of Gozan and
the cities of the Medes,[180] and we may see in these bas-reliefs a
picture of the hardships and sufferings to which the captive people of
Israel were exposed when their cities fell into the hands of the Assyrian
king, and their inhabitants were sent to colonise the distant provinces of
his empire.
On the south side of the hall, parts of four slabs only had been
preserved; the sculpture upon the others had been so completely destroyed,
that even the subject could no longer be ascertained. The fragments still
remaining, graphically depicted the passage of the river by the great
king. The bas-reliefs represented very accurately a scene that may be
daily witnessed, without the royal warrior, on the banks of the Tigris and
Euphrates.
Not a fragment of inscription remained to identify the country represented
in the bas-reliefs I have just described. From the size of the river, far
exceeding that of any other seen in the sculptures of Kouyunjik, I am
inclined to believe that it must have been the combined waters of the
Euphrates and Tigris, now known as the Shat-el-Arab.
In the south side of the hall a centre portal flanked by winged bulls, and
two small entrances, formed by gigantic figures, opened into a long
chamber, whose sculptured walls had been burnt to lime. To judge from the
fragments that remained of this series of sculptures, the most skilful
artist of the day must have been employed in its execution. At both ends
of the chamber, doors, guarded by colossal figures, led into smaller
apartments, in which the bas-reliefs had been almost entirely destroyed.
Returning to the great hall we found an entrance formed by colossal
figures leading into a long narrow chamber, about 70 feet by 12, whose
walls had partly escaped the general wreck. It appeared to be the remains
of an entrance into the palace, like that on the western face, or a
gallery leading to the outer terrace, which probably surrounded the
building. On its alabaster panels were sculptured the conquest of some of
those tribes which inhabited, from the remotest period, the vast marshes
formed by the Euphrates and Tigris in Chaldaea Babylonia.
Although the people represented in these bas-reliefs dwelt in the swampy
districts of Chaldaea, unless, indeed, they had only taken refuge in them
to escape the vengeance of the Assyrian king, they appear to have been as
rich, if not richer, than any others conquered by Sennacherib. With the
exception of three slabs and part of a fourth, containing the battle in
the marsh, the entire walls of the chamber were sculptured with the
captives and spoil brought by the victorious troops to their king.
Unfortunately the image of Sennacherib himself in his chariot, which, to
judge from a fragment or two found in the rubbish, must have exceeded all
others in the palace, both in size and in the finish and richness of the
details, had been entirely destroyed.
Returning to the great hall, from which this gallery led, I found on its
western side three other entrances, corresponding with those on the
southern, the centre formed by a pair of winged bulls in a fossiliferous
limestone. They led into a chamber 58 feet by 34, panelled with
unsculptured slabs of the same material as the colossi at the principal
portal. Three similar doorways opened into a parallel chamber of the same
length, though rather narrower. Its walls had been ornamented with carved
alabaster slabs, of which a few fragments remained.
Three doorways on the western side of this chamber, similar to those on
the eastern, led into as many distinct rooms, unconnected with each other.
There were thus three magnificent portals, one behind the other, each
formed by winged bulls facing the same way, and all looking towards the
great hall; the largest colossi, those in front, being above 18 feet high,
and the smallest, those leading into the inner chamber, about 12. It would
be difficult to conceive any interior architectural arrangement more
imposing than this triple group of gigantic forms, as seen in perspective
by those who stood in the centre of the hall, dimly lighted from above,
and harmoniously colored or overlaid, like the cherubims in the temple of
Solomon, with gold.
At the upper or southern ends of the two parallel chambers just described,
were entrances opening into a room 82 feet by 24, whose walls were of the
same unsculptured limestone. From it a portal formed by winged lions in
the same material, led into an apartment 76 feet by 26, standing on the
edge of the mound, and consequently one of the last on this side of the
palace. Only six slabs, neither of them entire, remained against its
walls; the rest had been purposely destroyed and the fragments used for
the foundations of a building raised over the Assyrian ruins. They were
covered from top to bottom with small figures, most elaborately carved,
and designed with great spirit. Although bearing a general resemblance to
the bas-reliefs of Kouyunjik, there was sufficient in the style of art and
in the details, to show that they were not of exactly the same period.
Fortunately several epigraphs still remained over the principal groups,
and enable us to determine to what monarch the sculptures belong, and to
identify the events and incidents they portray.
The three slabs to the right of the winged lions on entering, were
occupied by a highly curious representation of a battle. The subject was
incomplete, and could not be restored; and from the number of figures
introduced, and the complicated nature of the action, it is difficult to
describe these important bas-reliefs intelligibly. Above one of the groups
of figures was an epigraph, unfortunately much mutilated, which recorded
the slaughter of a king, whose name was (? Tiranish), and who, we learn
from other inscriptions on the same sculptures, reigned over Elam, or
Susiana. The lines being incomplete, the meaning of the whole inscription
is not quite clear.
Behind the cart with the Assyrian warriors, was the tent of the registrar,
to which had been led a captive chief and his two attendants. Within were
collected a heap of human heads, whilst warriors were bringing more of
these bloody trophies to the appointed scribes. Several of the captives
were apparently about to undergo some dreadful torture; with their hands
manacled in iron fetters, they knelt over an object which might be a
chafing-dish with hot coals or a vessel to receive their blood. One of the
torturers held his victim by a collar round his neck; whilst a second,
seizing the unfortunate prisoner by the hair, was about to strike him with
ah iron-headed mace.
The epigraphs declare that the war recorded by these sculptures was
undertaken by an Assyrian king, whose image was represented on a slab not
yet described, against the people of Elam or Susiana. It is of
considerable importance thus to identify the conquered people, and to be
able to ascertain the costume, the arms, and the mode of warfare of a
nation well known in ancient history.
Amongst the captives were men clothed in fringed robes and a short
under-tunic: these were probably the lords of the land. The women wore
their hair in curls, falling on their shoulders, and bound above the
temples by a band or fillet. Some had one long ringlet on each side of the
face. Their children were either naked or clothed in simple shirts.
The Assyrian troops were divided into cavalry and foot. The horsemen
carried the bow and spear, and wore coats of mail, high greaves, and the
pointed helmet, that characteristic part of the Assyrian military costume
from the earliest period. Their horses were covered with clothes, and
even, it would seem, with a kind of leather armour, reaching from the head
to the tail, to protect them from the arrows of the enemy.[181] The
costumes of the footmen, as in the bas-reliefs of Sennacherib, varied
according to their arms. The archers, probably auxiliaries from different
tribes in alliance with the Assyrians, were dressed in very short tunics
scarcely covering the thigh. A broad belt, with the fringed ornament
peculiar to the later Assyrian period, encircled their waist, and over
their shoulders they wore a cross belt, of chequered cloth, resembling a
Scottish plaid, to support the quiver. Their hair, confined by a plain
fillet, was rolled up behind in one large curl. All the spearmen had the
pointed helmet; but some wore coats of mail and metal greaves, and others
a simple tunic, without any covering to their legs. Their shields
protected nearly the whole person, and were rounded at the top and
straight at the bottom. Some appear to have been faced with small square
pieces of leather, others to have been made entirely of metal, with
embossed edges. For the first time we see in these bas-reliefs, the
Assyrians using the battle-axe and the mace in battle.
On the opposite side of the lion-entrance were also three slabs, but
better preserved than those I have just described. They formed part of the
same subject, which had evidently been carried round the four walls of the
chamber. They represented the triumph of the Assyrian king, and, like the
battle scenes, were divided by horizontal lines into several bands or
friezes. The monarch stood in his chariot, surrounded by his body-guard.
Unfortunately his face, with those of the charioteer and the eunuch
bearing the parasol, had been purposely defaced, like that of Sennacherib
on his monuments, probably when the united armies of the Medes and
Babylonians destroyed the palace. The royal robes were profusely adorned
with rosettes and fringes.
In front of the chariot were two warriors or guards in embroidered robes
and greaves. Their long hair was bound by a fillet, whose tasselled ends
fell loose behind. They were preceded by two remarkable figures, both
eunuchs, and probably intended for portraits of some well-known officers
of the royal household. One was old and corpulent; his forehead was high
and ample; his nose curved and small, and his chin round and double. The
wrinkles of the brow, the shaggy eyebrows, and the bloated cheeks, with
the stubble beard peculiar to beings of his class, were very faithfully
represented. His short hair was tied with a fillet. His companion was
younger, and had not the same marked features. He carried before him a
square object resembling a closed box or book, perhaps a clay tablet
containing some decree or register, such as were discovered in the ruins.
Both wore long plain shirts, and round their waists a simple cord, in
which was fixed a whip, probably a sign of their office.
Above this remarkable group was an inscription in eight lines fortunately
almost entire. From it we learn the name of the king, whose deeds were
thus recorded. He was the son of Essarhaddon, and the grandson of
Sennacherib, and the conqueror of Susiana. He was the Assordanes of the
chronological tables, and his name begins with the monogram for the
Assyrian deity, Asshur.
These bas-reliefs record his conquest of the country of (Nuvaki ?), a name
by which Susiana or Elymais was anciently known; as we also find from the
inscriptions at Khorsabad, as well as from those of Bisutun.
It is highly probable that we have, in the bas-relief, a representation of
the city of Susa or Shusan. Its position between two rivers well agrees
with that of existing ruins generally believed to mark its site. The
smaller stream would be the Shapour, and the larger the Euloeus or river
of Dizful. The city was surrounded by a wall, with equidistant towers and
gateways. The houses were flat roofed, and some had one tower or upper
chamber, and others two. They had no windows, and their doors were square.
Thus, in general form, and probably in the interior arrangements, they
closely resembled the common dwellings of the Egyptians, of which a very
interesting model is now in the British Museum.[182] Nor were they unlike
the meaner houses of the modern town of Shushter, the representative of
ancient Susa.
The adjoining slab was divided into eight bands or friezes, by parallel
lines, and the next slab into seven. On both were represented the
Assyrian army returning from its victorious campaign, and bringing to the
king the captives and the spoil. The prisoners, who were probably
considered rather rebels to his authority than enemies, were being cruelly
tortured in his presence. The principal group was that of the eunuch
general, or Tartan, leading a chief or prince of the conquered people.
Above him was an inscription unfortunately much mutilated. It appears to
have declared that he was one of the sons or chiefs of the Susianian
monarch, defeated and slain in battle near the district of Madaktu (the
name over the city on the adjoining slab), and near the city of Shushan;
and that the Assyrian king had placed one of his own generals on the
conquered throne.[183]
Before the captive prince were gathered a number of the Susianians,
probably the subjects of the slaughtered king, who had come to surrender
to the Assyrian general, for they still carried their arms, and were not
led by the victorious warriors. Some of them knelt, some bowed to the
ground, and others, stretched at full length, rubbed their heads in the
dust, all signs of grief and submission still practised in the East. The
Assyrian generals were welcomed by bands of men and women, dancing,
singing, and playing on instruments of music. Thus, "when David was
returned from the slaughter of the Philistines, the women came out of all
the cities of Israel, singing and dancing to meet Saul, with tabrets,
with joy, and with instruments of music."[184] We find from various
passages in the Scriptures, that the instruments of music chiefly used on
such triumphant occasions were the harp, one with ten strings (rendered
viol or lyre in some versions, but probably a kind of dulcimer), the tabor
and the pipe[185], precisely those represented in the bas-reliefs.
The whole scene was curiously illustrative of modern Eastern customs. The
musicians portrayed in the bas-reliefs were probably of that class of
public performers who appear in Turkey and Egypt at marriages, and on
other occasions of rejoicing.
Above the Assyrian warriors were the captives and their torturers. The
former differed in costume from the Susianian fighting-men represented in
the adjoining bas-reliefs. They were distinguished by the smallness of
their stature, and by a very marked Jewish countenance--a sharp, hooked
nose, short bushy beard, and long narrow eyes. Could they have belonged to
the Hebrew tribes which were carried away from Samaria and Jerusalem, and
placed by Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, or Essarhaddon, as colonists in the
distant regions of Elam, and who, having become powerful in their new
settlements, had revolted against their Assyrian rulers, and were once
again subdued? Some in iron fetters were being led before the king, for
judgment or pardon. Others had been condemned to the torture, and were
already in the hands of the executioners. Two were stretched naked at full
length on the ground, and whilst their limbs were held apart by pegs and
cords they were being flayed alive. Beneath them were other unfortunate
victims, undergoing abominable punishments. The brains of one were
apparently being beaten out with an iron mace, whilst an officer held him
by the beard. A torturer was wrenching the tongue out of the mouth of a
second wretch who had been pinioned to the ground. The bleeding heads of
the slain were tied round the necks of the living, who seemed reserved for
still more barbarous tortures.
Above these groups was a short epigraph, commencing by two determinative
signs of proper names, each followed by a blank space, which the sculptor
probably left to be filled up with the names of the principal victims. It
then declares that these men, having spoken blasphemies (?) against
Asshur, the great god of the Assyrians, their tongues had been pulled out
(_Lishaneshunu eshlup_, both words being almost purely Hebrew), and that
they had afterwards been put to death (or tortured). The inscription,
therefore, corresponds with the sculpture beneath. It is by such
confirmatory evidence that the accuracy of the translations of the
cuneiform characters may be tested.
These highly interesting bas-reliefs had been exposed, like all the other
sculptures of Kouyunjik, to the fire which had destroyed the palace.
Although each slab was cracked into many pieces, the sculptures themselves
had suffered less injury than any others discovered in the same ruins, the
hard fossiliferous limestone not having become calcined by the heat like
the alabaster. The outline was still sharp, and the details perfectly
preserved. Considerable care was required to move them. But the pieces
were at length packed, and since their arrival in England have been
admirably restored.
Some bas-reliefs sculptured by order of the son and successor of
Essarhaddon, have been discovered at Kouyunjik and Nebbi Yunus. These
bas-reliefs prove that many changes had taken place in the arts and dress
of the people of Assyria between the reign of Sennacherib and that of his
grandson. The later sculptures are principally distinguished by their
minute finish, the sharpness of the outline, and the very correct
delineation of the animals, and especially of the horses. We now approach
the period of the fall of the Assyrian empire and of the rise of the
kingdoms of Babylon and Persia. The arts passed from Assyria to the sister
nations and to Ionia. There is much in the bas-reliefs I have just
described to remind us of the early works of the Greeks immediately after
the Persian war, and to illustrate a remark of the illustrious Niebuhr,
that "a critical history of Greek art would show how late the Greeks
commenced to practise the arts. After the Persian war a new world opens at
once, and from that time they advanced with great strides. But everything
that was produced before the Persian war--a few of those works are still
extant--was, if we judge of it without prejudice, altogether
barbarous."[186]
The chamber containing these sculptures had an entrance opening upon the
edge of the mound. Of this doorway there only remained, on each side, a
block of plain limestone, which may, however, have been the base of a
sphinx or other figure. The outer walls to which it led had been panelled
with the usual alabaster slabs, with bas-reliefs of a campaign in a
country already represented in another part of the palace, and
distinguished by the same deep valley watered by a river, the vineyards
and wooded mountains. Over one of the castles captured and destroyed by
the Assyrians was written, "Sennacherib, King of Assyria. The city of
Bit-Kubitalmi I took, the spoil I carried away, (the city) I burned."
Whether these walls belonged to a chamber or formed part of the southern
face of the palace could not now be determined, as they were on the very
brink of the platform. At right angles to them, to the west, a pair of
winged bulls opened upon another wall, of which there were scarcely any
remains, and midway between the two entrances was a deep doorway, flanked
on both sides by four colossal mythic figures, amongst which were the fish
god and the deity with the lion's head and eagle's feet. It led to an
inclined or ascending passage, nine feet wide in the narrowest part and
ten in the broadest, and forty-four feet in length to where it turned at
right angles to the left. It was paved with hard lime or plaster about an
inch and a half thick. The walls were built of the finest sundried bricks,
admirably fitted together, and still perfectly preserved.
This inclined way probably led to the upper chambers of the palace, or to
the galleries which may have been carried round the principal chambers and
halls.
I have only to describe two more rooms discovered in this part of the
ruins during the summer. They opened into the chamber parallel with that
containing the sculptured records of the son of Essarhaddon. The entrances
to both were formed by two pairs of colossal figures, each pair consisting
of a man wearing the horned cap surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, and a
lion-headed and eagle-footed human figure raising a dagger in one hand,
and holding a mace in the other. These sculptures were remarkable for the
boldness of the relief and their high finish.
The bas-reliefs on the walls of the two chambers recorded the same
campaign against a nation dwelling amidst a wooded and mountainous
country, and in strongly fortified cities, which the Assyrians took by
assault, using battering rams to make breaches in the walls and scaling
ladders to mount to the assault. The besieged defended themselves with
arrows and stones, but their strongholds were captured, and a vast amount
of spoil and captives fell into the hands of the conquerors. The men had
short, bushy hair and beards, and wore an inner garment reaching to the
knee, an outer cloak of skins or fur, and gaiters laced in front. The
robes of the women were short; their hair hung low down their backs, and
was then gathered up into one large curl.
Such were the discoveries made at Kouyunjik during the summer. At Nimroud
the excavations had been almost suspended. I have already described those
parts of the high mound or tower, and of the adjoining small temples which
were explored by the few workmen who still remained amongst the ruins,
rather to retain possession of the place than to carry on extensive
operations.
I was engaged until the middle of October in moving and packing
bas-reliefs from Kouyunjik; a task of considerable trouble, and demanding
much time and labor, as the slabs, split into a thousand fragments by the
fire, had to be taken completely to pieces, and then arranged and
numbered, with a view to their future restoration. Nearly a hundred cases
containing these remains were at length dragged to the river side, to wait
the rafts by which they were to be forwarded to Busrah, where a vessel was
shortly expected to transport them to England.