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
Many fragments of bas-reliefs in the same black marble, chiefly parts of
winged figures, had been uncovered; but this building has been more
completely destroyed than any other part of the palace of Khorsabad, and
there is scarcely enough rubbish even to cover the few remains of
sculpture which are scattered over the platform.
The sculptures in the palace itself had rapidly fallen to decay, and of
those which had been left exposed to the air after M. Botta's departure,
scarcely any traces remained. Since my former visit to Khorsabad, the
French consul at Mosul had sold to Col. Rawlinson the pair of colossal
human-headed bulls and winged figures, now in the great hall of the
British Museum. They had stood in a propylæum, about 900 feet to the
south-east of the palace, within the quadrangle, but not upon the
artificial mound. In form this small building appears to have been nearly
the same as the gateway, in the walls of Kouyunjik, and like it was built
of brick and panelled with low limestone slabs. From the number of
enamelled bricks discovered in the ruins it is probable that it was richly
decorated in color.
Trenches had also been opened in one of the higher mounds in the line of
walls, and in the group of ruins at the S. W. corner of the quadrangle,
but no discoveries of any interest had been made. The centre of the
quadrangle was now occupied by a fever-breeding marsh formed by the waters
of the Khauser.
We passed the night at Futhliyah, a village built at the foot of the Gabel
Makloub, about a mile and a half from Khorsabad. Near Futhliyah, and about
two miles from the palace of Khorsabad, is a lofty conical Tel visible
from Mosul, and from most parts of the surrounding country. It is one of
those isolated mounds so numerous in the plains of Assyria, which do not
appear to form part of any group of ruins, and the nature of which I have
been unable to determine. Its vicinity to Khorsabad led me to believe that
it might have been connected with those remains, and might have been
raised over a tomb. By my directions deep trenches were opened into its
sides, but only fragments of pottery were discovered.
From Futhliyah we rode across the plain to the large village of Baazani,
chiefly inhabited by Yezidis. There we found Hussein Bey, Sheikh Nasr, and
a large party of Cawals assembled at the house of one Abd-ur-rahman
Chelibi, a Mussulman gentleman of Mosul, who had farmed the revenues of
the place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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