Beside these types we found a number of small figures of horsemen. The oldest of these, which date back to the time before Nabopolassar, and of which several have been found in the temple, are some of them glazed (Fig. 149); the details are always roughly modelled by hand, and the rider sits like a lump of clay on the neck of a barely recognisable horse. Later on these riders were more carefully worked, the horse’s head was slightly modelled, while the legs remain shapeless stumps, the rider becomes a long strip sitting across the animal, and only the bearded head of the rider is produced from a fairly good mould (Fig. 150). He wears a hood, which in one type has the point erect, while in another it falls on one side, as in the figure of Darius in the mosaic of Pompeii. [Illustration: FIG. 149.—Early horseman, glazed. ] [Illustration: FIG. 150.—Later horseman, Parthian (?). ] [Illustration: FIG. 151.—Woman in covered litter, on horseback. ] It is only in yet later examples that the complete modelling of both horse and rider first makes its appearance. The figure of a woman, of which several examples have been found in the temple, is entirely analogous both in form and general workmanship. She is carried on a horse in a covered litter with a semicircular top (Fig. 151). A similar form of litter is in use in the neighbourhood to-day under the name of _Ketshaue_. XLI THE EXCAVATIONS TO THE NORTH OF THE NINIB TEMPLE North-east of the Ninib temple we have cut four trenches through the hill to the plain beyond. Here we found the same strata of private houses and streets that we shall meet with again in Merkes. Here, at the depth of the water-level, were some small plano-convex clay tablets with carefully modelled reliefs of lions, fabulous creatures, etc., on the flat side, as well as some figures in the round, also worked with great minuteness. Among these there is a fine bearded head with the hair tied up in a napkin, as, beside others, it is worn by Marduk on the piece of lapis lazuli described above. They appear to be working models for a large statue.