Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and BabylonLayard, Austen Henry
History
Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon
Layard, Austen Henry
Babylon (Extinct city); Middle East -- Description and travel; Nineveh (Extinct city); Scientific expeditions
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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