We have thus represented, with remarkable fidelity and spirit[41], the several processes employed to place these colossi where they still stand, from the transport down the river of the rough block to the final removal of the sculptured figure to the palace. From these bas-reliefs we find that the Assyrians were well acquainted with the lever and the roller, and that they ingeniously made use of the former by carrying with them wedges, of different dimensions, and probably of wood, to vary the height of the fulcrum. When moving the winged bulls and lions now in the British Museum from the ruins to the banks of the Tigris, I used almost the same means. The Assyrians, like the Egyptians, had made considerable progress in rope twisting, an art now only known in its rudest state in the same part of the East. The cables appear to be of great length and thickness, and ropes of various dimensions are represented in the sculptures. On comparing representations of similar works among the Egyptians, it will be found that they succeeded in removing masses of stone far exceeding in weight any sculpture which has yet been discovered in Assyria. Yet it is a singular fact, that whilst the quarries of Egypt bear witness of themselves to the stupendous nature of the works of the ancient inhabitants of the country, and still show on their sides engraved records of those who made them, no traces whatever, notwithstanding the most careful research, have yet been found to indicate from whence the builders of the Assyrian palaces obtained their large slabs of alabaster. That they were in the immediate neighbourhood of Nineveh there is scarcely any reason to doubt, as strata of this material, easily accessible, abound, not only in the hills but in the plains. This very abundance may have rendered any particular quarry unnecessary, and blocks were probably taken as required from convenient spots, which have since been covered by the soil. There can be no doubt, as will hereafter be shown, that the king represented as superintending the building of the mounds and the placing of the colossal bulls is Sennacherib himself, and that the sculptures celebrate the building at Nineveh of the great palace and its adjacent temples described in the inscriptions as the work of this monarch. Unfortunately only fragments of the epigraphs have been preserved. From them it would appear that the transport of more than one object was represented on the walls. Besides bulls and sphynxes in stone are mentioned figures in some kind of wood, perhaps of olive, like "the two cherubims of olive tree, each ten cubits high," in the temple of Solomon.[42] Over the king superintending the removal of one of these colossi is the following short inscription thus translated by Dr. Hincks:-- "Sennacherib, king of Assyria, the great figures of bulls, which in the land of Belad, were made for his royal palace at Nineveh, he transported _thither_." (?)