But the inscribed clay tablets--some baked, others unbaked--are not the only monuments of value as sources of history which have been uncovered by the pick and spade of the excavator in the tells of Assyria and Babylonia. There are also seals, statues, cylinders, and bas-reliefs innumerable which bear cuneiform inscriptions of the utmost value to the historian and the man of science. There are even numberless uninscribed monuments which are also of immense historical importance. Such are the sculptured alabaster slabs which once adorned the palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh. These marvelous bas-reliefs exhibit scenes of domestic life, the peculiar garbs of men and women, of masters and slaves, of natives and foreigners with almost photographic exactness. They likewise show spirited representations of battles and sieges, which portray in the most lifelike manner the types of the combatants, their divers instruments of warfare, the punishments inflicted by the victor on helpless captives, and long processions of the vanquished bringing tribute to the triumphant monarch of Assyria. Without the knowledge of a single cuneiform character [declares Professor Hilprecht] we learned the principal events of Sennacherib’s government, and, from a mere study of those sculptured walls, we got familiar with customs and habits of the ancient Assyrians, at the same time obtaining a first clear glance of the whole civilization of Western Asia.[374] The foregoing pages show the extraordinary progress that has been made in Assyriology since Botta and Layard began their famous excavations in the ruins of Nineveh in the middle of the last century. But, although much, very much, has been achieved, far more remains to be accomplished. For there are, we are assured, hundreds of ruin-mounds and earth-covered cities in Western Asia awaiting the spade and the pick of the excavator to disclose treasures that will equal, if not surpass in value any that have yet rewarded the labors of the explorer. Even such important ruins as those of Babylon and Nineveh, where such splendid results have been obtained, have so far yielded, there is reason to believe, but a part, possibly but a small part, of their precious stores. For it has been computed that to excavate Kuyunjik and Nebi Yunus--the two principal mounds of Nineveh--would require the labor of a thousand men working continually for a hundred and seventy-four years. “The recent excavations and tunnelings at Kuyunjik”--the Citadel of Nineveh--“fruitful as they have been in results, have made little impression on the vast mass of ruin, and only prove how much might be gained by complete clearance.”[375]