The composition contains three groups, or rather one group repeated three times without sensible differences. The middle group, which is divided between the upper and lower parts in our woodcut, has been more seriously injured by the weather than those on each side of it; three of its figures have almost disappeared. The first group to the right in the upper division has part of its surface cut away by a door giving access to a rock-cut chamber behind the relief, like those at Bavian. It is, then, in the left-hand group that the subject and treatment can now be most clearly grasped. In the first place, we may see at a glance that the theme is practically the same as at Bavian; it is a king adoring the great national gods. But the latter are now seven in number instead of two; instead of being face to face they are all turned in one direction, towards the king; but the latter is none the less repeated behind each group. There are some other differences. Among the animals who serve to raise the gods above the level of mere humanity we may distinguish the dog, the lion, the horse, and the winged bull. The gods are in the same attitude as at Bavian; their insignia are the same, those sceptres with a ring in the middle, which we never find except in the hands of deities. The sixth in the row also grasps the triple-pointed object that we have already recognised as the prototype of the Greek thunderbolt.[268] Finally, each god has the short Assyrian sword upon his thigh. To this there is one exception, in the second figure of each group. This figure is seated upon a richly-decorated throne, and has no beard, so that we may look upon it as representing a goddess. The last of the seven deities is also beardless, and, in spite of the sword and the standing attitude, may also be taken to represent a goddess. The tiaras, which are like those of Bavian in shape, each bear a star, the Assyrian ideogram for _God_.[269] There is no inscription, but both Place and Layard agree that the proportions of the figures, and their execution, and the costume of the king, declare the work to have been carried out in the time of the Sargonids, probably under Sennacherib, but if not, during the reign either of his father, his son, or his grandson. We have been led to give a reproduction and detailed description of these reliefs, chiefly because they acted as a school for the people about them. We find this habit of cutting great sculpturesque compositions on cliff-faces followed, on the one hand by the natives of Iran, on the other by those of Cappadocia, and in the works they produced there are points of likeness to the Assyrian reliefs that can by no means be accidental. When the proper time comes we shall, we believe, be able to show that there was direct and deliberate imitation. * * * * *