[333] This character of a tutelary divinity that we attribute to the winged bull is indicated in the clearest manner in the cuneiform texts: "In this palace," says Esarhaddon, "the _sedi_ and _lamassi_ (the Assyrian names for these colossi) are propitious, are the guardians of my royal promenade and the rejoicers of my heart, may they ever watch over the palace and never quit its walls." And again: "I caused doors to be made in cypress, which has a good smell, and I had them adorned with gold and silver and fixed in the doorways. Right and left of those doorways I caused _sedi_ and _lamassi_ of stone to be set up, they are placed there to repulse the wicked." (ST. GUYARD, _Bulletin de la Religion assyrienne_, in the _Revue de l'Histoire des Religions_, vol. i. p. 43, note.) [334] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii, plate 21. [335] Those in the Louvre are fourteen feet high; the tallest pair in the British Museum are about the same. [336] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 92, fig. 70. [337] On the subject of these winged bulls see Fr. LENORMANT, _Les Origines de l'Histoire_, vol. i. chap. 3. [338] The bas-relief here reproduced comes from the palace of Assurbanipal at Kouyundjik. In the fragment now in the Louvre there are three stories, but the upper story, being an exact repetition of that immediately below it, has been omitted in our engraving. [339] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, p. 176. LAYARD, _Discoveries_, pp. 529, 651. BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 44. In the book of Daniel the hand that traces the warning words upon the walls of Belshazzar's palace traces them "_upon the plaster of the wall_" (DANIEL v. 5). [340] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 77. [341] At Warka, however, LOFTUS found in the building he calls _Wuswas_ a layer of plaster which was from two to four inches thick. (_Travels_, p. 176.) [342] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. ii. pp. 77, 78. [343] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 25. [344] _Ibid._ vol. i. pp. 141-146; vol. ii. pp. 79, 80; vol. iii. plates 36 and 37. [345] HERODOTUS (Rawlinson's translation), i. 98. [346] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 32. [347] G. SMITH, _Assyrian Discoveries_, pp. 77, 78. LAYARD (_Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 130) also says that some rooms had no other decoration.