terraced mound 45 feet high, which was made of crude or unbaked bricks, and was protected by a casing-wall of large square stones. The palace contained wide halls, adorned with sculptures, winged bulls and the like. The floors of the various chambers consisted generally of stamped clay, and were no doubt hidden from view by elaborate rugs, sometimes, however, tiles or blocks of marble concealed the unsightly clay. The walls were of great thickness, i.e. from 9-1/2 to 16 feet, while in one place they measured as much as 25-1/2 feet. The inner walls of the less important chambers were only covered with a white plaster surrounded by black lines, the so-called women’s apartments, on the other hand, being decorated with frescoes and white or black arabesques. Marble statues were unearthed in the harem court, and the remains of a ziggurat or stage-tower—a characteristic feature in Mesopotamian temples—were brought to light. Place’s excavations were not so productive of large sculptures and monuments as those of Botta had been, but they were particularly fruitful as regards smaller objects of glass, stone, clay, and metal. The first Englishman to enter the field was Layard who in 1845, only two years after Botta’s first expedition, commenced excavating the ruined mounds of Nimrûd. Nimrûd, which proved to be the ancient Calah, was built on a rectangular plateau just as Khorsabad had been, and the exploration of its site yielded a rich harvest of new materials for the reconstruction of the history of the past. Ashur-naṣir-pal, king of Assyria (885-860), following the example of Shalmaneser I (about 1300), removed the seat of government from Ashur forty miles northwards, to Calah, where he built a palace for himself, the excavation of which was one of Layard’s greatest triumphs. This palace occupied the north-western portion of the mound and was in part restored by Sargon; to the north of this palace of Ashur-naṣir-pal lay the site of the temple of Ninib or Adar, the god of war. Shalmaneser II (860-825) the successor of Ashur-naṣir-pal, also built a palace at Calah, on the south-east of that of his predecessor; this palace, known as the central palace, was almost entirely rebuilt by Tiglath-Pileser III, the Biblical Pul (745-727 B.C.). _PLATE II_ [Illustration: 1. KOUYUNJIK AND NEBI YÛNUS FROM THE NORTH 2. KOUYUNJIK AND NEBI YÛNUS FROM MOSUL 3. NIMRÛD (CALAH) 4. KHORSABAD] At the south-west corner, the palace of Esarhaddon (681-668) was excavated, in the construction of which, that king utilized the materials of the older palaces in the most unscrupulous fashion, but the building was found to have been much damaged by fire. North of Esarhaddon’s palace and south of that of Ashur-naṣir-pal, lay the comparatively small palace of Adad-nirari III (812-783 B.C.), and in the south-east corner of the parallelogram the insignificant remains of the palace of Ashur-etil-ilâni (about 625) one of the last of Assyria’s monarchs were brought to light.