Assur, it would seem, was a shrine long before "Assyria went out of Babylon and builded Nineveh." There are unmistakable signs of a Hittite occupation before them. It was news to the writer that this people had ever penetrated so far to the east and south. When the place fell into Assyrian hands it became their great sacred city; so that almost every king of whom there is record seems to have felt bound to leave there some mark of his reign. Even the latest of the line, Sinsariskun, who ruled for a few weeks only before the Medes stormed Nineveh, and who perished in the flames of his palace, has done some building here. Hence there is a series of at least seven temples on the site; though in each case the lines of the original foundation were faithfully followed, and are preserved above ground now in the Arabian "_kala_" which occupies the ground. This "_kala_," by the way, cost considerable trouble to the excavators. Occupying the site it did, it had to come down if the most important portion of the work was not to go undone; but it was a terrible business to secure that result. The wretched place figured in formal reports as a complete modern fortress of the highest strategical importance; and permission to dismantle it was only given at last on condition of rebuilding it afterwards, exactly as it was before. As this cost something under £100, an inference may be drawn as to the character of the "fort." The temple is of the ordinary "Semitic" type, and so follows the same general plan as Solomon's at Jerusalem, and the larger one at Baalbek. That is to say, there was an inner shrine, or _cella_, into which normally none could enter, and a _naos_ before it corresponding to the "holy place" at Jerusalem. Outside the temple was a series of "concentric" courts, of irregular shape, and probably varying degrees of sanctity, each one lower in level than the one within it. One of these contained the great altar for sacrifice, and the tank for ablutions. The altar was approached (again as at Jerusalem) by a sloping ramp and not by steps. "Thou shalt not go up by steps unto Mine altar"--a device probably meant to facilitate the leading up of the sacrificial beasts. The whole is of mud brick; stone, or even burnt brick being only used for ornament; and the tank mentioned was made watertight by a thick lining of asphalt, still _in situ_. If the temple has not yielded any such sculptures as have been found in the palaces of Nineveh and Khorsabad, many minor _antikas_ have come to light there; and perhaps the most interesting was a fine model of a flash of lightning, in gold, and about a metre in length. This was no doubt the _ex voto_ offering of some great man in old days, but no inscription was found to explain it. Its discovery caused great excitement in Turkish official circles, report having necessarily been sent by the Ottoman commissioner who is supposed to superintend the excavation. Stories circulated of the