[126] At Nimroud, in the palace of Esarhaddon, the lions and bulls of the gateways are of a grey and rather coarse limestone, while the bas-reliefs are of alabaster (LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. pp. 26 and 163). The same mixture occurs in the palace of Assurnazirpal. Several of the bulls in that building are of a fine yellow limestone which must have been brought from the hills of Kurdistan (LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 315). [127] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 316; _Discoveries_, pp. 307, 308, 309, &c. [128] Each side of the original has five reliefs. We have been compelled to suppress one in order to give our figures sufficient scale. [129] The obelisk reliefs should be studied in horizontal bands, and not by taking the whole of a face at a time. A translation of the accompanying texts will be found in OPPERT’S _Expédition_, vol. i; and reproductions of all the four faces in LAYARD’S _Monuments_, 1st series, plates 53–56. [130] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i, p. 150, and vol. iii. plate 48, fig. 3. [131] HEUZEY, _Catalogue des figurines en terre cuite du musée du Louvre_, vol. i. p. 26. [132] HEUZEY, _Catalogue_, &c., p. 18. [133] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. pp. 375. [134] Both the British Museum and the Louvre possess examples of this kind of work in which the handling shows the greatest freedom. [135] The slab numbered 107 contains, perhaps, the nearest approach to a reproduction of the group in question. [136] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. pp. 197–203, and figs. 179 and 180. [137] This was the opinion of M. DE LONGPÉRIER (_Musée Napoléon III._, description of plate 1). [138] See vol. i. page 242. [139] See also plate xii. [140] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 563. [141] DE LONGPÉRIER, _Notice des antiquités assyriennes du Musée du Louvre_, 3rd edition, 1854. [142] We take this transcription from a note sent by Dr. BIRCH to the _Athenæum_ (14 July, 1877), when the ivory in question, together with many more objects, was stolen from the British Museum. It was offered by the thief, in the first place, to M. de Longpérier, who thought it a forgery, and afterwards to the keeper of the Hague Museum, who, put on his guard by the publicity which by that time had been given to the theft, detained the piece and restored it to its legitimate owners. [143] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. pp. 293–295. [144] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 361. The same characteristics may be recognized in the alabaster statues found by PLACE in one of the harem courts at Khorsabad (_Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 122–125, and vol. iii. plate 31, _bis_.). They are shown on a small scale in our fig. 197 (vol. i.). We may see that they were set with their backs against a wall, and that they carried a cushion on their heads, on which we have placed a vase of flowers. These statues were drowned in the Tigris!