He is here represented as standing upright, the tiara on his brow, and his right arm extended as if in the act of worship, while his left, the elbow brought up to his side, holds a club. The inscription appended to the figure tells, with an eloquence all the more effective from its brevity, how, “with the aid of Assur, Shamash, and Eammân, the great gods, my lords, I, Tiglath-pileser, King of Assyria, son of Assurîshishî, King of Assyria, son of Mutakkilnusku, King of Assyria, conqueror from the great sea, the Mediterranean, to the great sea of Naîri, I went for the third time to Naîri.” The gods who had so signally favoured the monarch received the greater part of the spoils which he had secured in his campaigns. The majority of the temples of Assyria, which were founded at a time when its city was nothing more than a provincial capital owing allegiance to Babylon, were either, it would appear, falling to ruins from age, or presented a sorry exterior, utterly out of keeping with the magnitude of its recent wealth. The king set to work to enlarge or restore the temples of Ishtar, Martu, and the ancient Bel;* he then proceeded to rebuild, from the foundations to the summit, that of Anu and Bammân, which the vicegerent Samsirammân, son of Ismidagan, had constructed seven hundred and one years previously. This temple was the principal sanctuary of the city, because it was the residence of the chief of the gods, Assur, under his appellation of Anu.** * “Bel the ancient,” or possibly “the ancient master,” appears to have been one of the names of Anu, who is naturally in this connexion the same as Assur. ** This was the great temple of which the ruins still exist. The soil was cleared away down to the bed-rock, upon which an enormous substructure, consisting of fifty courses of bricks, was laid, and above this were erected two lofty ziggurâts, whose tile-covered surfaces shone like the rising sun in their brightness; the completion of the whole was commemorated by a magnificent festival. The special chapel of Bammân and his treasury, dating from the time of the same Samsirammân who had raised the temple of Anu, were also rebuilt on a more important scale.* * The British Museum possesses bricks bearing the name of Tiglath-pileser I., brought from this temple, as is shown by the inscription on their sides. These works were actively carried on notwithstanding the fact that war was raging on the frontier; however preoccupied he might be with warlike projects, Tiglath-pileser never neglected the temples, and set to work to collect from every side materials for their completion and adornment. [Illustration: 235.jpg TRANSPORT OF BUILDING MATERIALS BY WATER] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief on the bronze doors at Balawât.