Discoveries Among The Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon; With Travels in Armenia, Kurdistan, and the Desert: Being the Result of a Second Expedition Undertaken for the Trustees of the British Museum, by Austen H. Layard, M.P., Author of "Nineveh and Its Remains", 1853
CHAPTER XVI. Discoveries at Kouyunjik.—Procession of Figures bearing Fruit and Game.—Locusts.—Led Horses.—An Assyrian Campaign.—Dagon, or the Fish-God.—The Chambers of Records.—Inscribed Clay Tablets.—Return to Nimroud.—Effects of the Flood.—Discoveries.—Small Temple under high Mound.—The Evil Spirit.—Fish-God.—Fine Bas-relief of the King.—Extracts from the Inscription.—Great inscribed Monolith.—Extracts from the Inscription.—Cedar Beams.—Small Objects.—Second Temple.—Marble Figure and other Objects 280
An Entrance to the Great Hall of the Northwest Palace (Nimroud).
During my absence in the Desert, the excavations at Kouyunjik had been actively carried on under the superintendence of Toma Shishman. On my arrival he described many interesting discoveries, and I hastened to the ruins, crossing in a rude ferry-boat the river, now swollen, by the spring rains, to more than double its usual size. * [The Tigris this year had risen much higher than usual. I have already mentioned that the plain of Nimroud was completely under water; opposite Mosul the flood nearly reached the mounds of Kouyunjik and Nebbi Yunus.]
The earth had been completely removed from the sides of the long gallery, on the walls of which had been portrayed the transport of the large stone and of the winged bulls.* [No. XLIX. Plan I.] An outlet was discovered near its western end, opening into a narrow descending passage; an entrance, it would appear, into the palace from the river side. † [No. LI. same Plan.] Its length was ninety-six feet, its breadth not more than thirteen. The walls were panelled with sculptured slabs about six feet high.‡ [The figures are about 4-1/2 feet in height.] Those to the right, in descending, represented a procession of servants carrying fruit, flowers, game, and supplies for a banquet, preceded by mace-bearers. The first servant following the guard bore an object which I should not hesitate to identify with the pineapple, unless there were every reason to believe that the Assyrians were unacquainted with that fruit. The leaves sprouting from the top proved that it was not the cone of a pine tree or fir. After all, the sacred symbol held by the winged figures in the Assyrian sculptures, may be the same fruit, and not, as I have conjectured, that of a coniferous tree.§ [It has been suggested to me that the object carried by the winged figures may be the fruit of the fan palm, a tree whose general usefulness has rendered it sacred to the natives of parts of South America, but which, as far as I am aware, could not have grown in Assyria, or in any countries visited by the Assyrians.]
The attendants who followed carried clusters of ripe dates and flat baskets of osier-work, filled with pomegranates, apples, and bunches of grapes. They raised in one hand small green boughs to drive away the flies. Then came men bearing hares, partridges, and dried locusts fastened on rods. The locust has ever been an article of food in the East, and is still sold in the markets of many towns in Arabia. || [Burckhardt (Notes on the Bedouins, p. 269.) gives the following account of the mode of preparing them: — "The Arabs in preparing locusts as an article of food, throw them alive into boiling water, with which a good deal of salt has been mixed: after a few minutes they are taken out and dried in the sun. The head, feet, and wings are then torn off; the bodies are cleansed from the salt and perfectly dried; after which process whole sacks are filled with them by the Bedouins. They are sometimes eaten broiled in butter; and they often constitute materials for a breakfast when spread over unleavened bread mixed with butter." It has been conjectured that the locust eaten by John the Baptist in the wilderness was the fruit of a tree; but it is more probable that the prophet used a common article of food, abounding even in the Desert.] Being introduced in this bas-relief amongst the choice delicacies of a banquet, it was probably highly prized by the Assyrians.
Attendants carrying Pomegranates and Locusts (Kouyanjik.)
The locust-bearers were followed by a man with strings of pomegranates; then came, two by two, attendants carrying on their shoulders low tables, such as are still used in the East at feasts, loaded with baskets of cakes and fruits of various kinds. The procession was finished by a long line of servants bearing vases of flowers.
These figures were dressed in a short tunic, confined at the waist by a shawl or girdle. They wore no head-gear, their hair falling in curls on their shoulders.
On the opposite walls of the passage were fourteen horses without trappings, each horse having a simple halter twisted round its lower jaw, by which it was led by a groom. The animals and men were designed with considerable truth and spirit. The procession was marshalled by a staff-bearer, or chamberlain. The dresses of the grooms were richer than those of the banquet-bearers. They wore a short tunic and an embroidered belt, and to this was attached that ornament of fur, or colored fringe, peculiar to the costumes of the warriors of the later Assyrian period.* [Specimens of the led horses, and of the figures bearing locusts, are now in the British Museum. The slabs in this passage had been so much injured by fire, that only a few of them could be removed. See Plates 7, 8, and 9. of the 2nd series of the Monuments of Nineveh for the entire series.]
It is probable that the sculptures forming the upper end of the passage, but now entirely destroyed, represented the king receiving this double procession. The passage may have led to the banqueting-hall, or to a chamber, where royal feasts were sometimes held, and was therefore adorned with appropriate subjects. At its western end the gallery turned abruptly to the north, its walls being there built of solid stone-masonry. I lost all further traces of it, as the workmen were unable, at that time, to carry on the tunnel beneath an accumulated mass of earth and rubbish about forty feet thick. I did not, consequently, ascertain its western outlet. We had, however, nearly reached the edge of the mound; and as there was no space left for a chamber of any size beyond, this passage may have opened on a flight of steps, or on an incline leading from the river, and forming a kind of private entrance or postern into the palace.
The King in his Chariot passing through a Stream in a Valley (Kouyunjik)
Assyrian Cylinder, with Dagon, or the Fish-god
Entrance Passage, Kouyanjik
Fish god (Kouyunjik)
Fish-god on Gems in the British Museum.
Archive Chamber (Kouyunjik)
As the workmen could no longer, without some danger, excavate in this part of the ruins, they had returned to the chamber already described as containing a series of bas-reliefs representing the capture and sack of a large city in the mountains, and as opening into the broad gallery on whose walls were depictured the various processes employed by the Assyrians in moving their colossal figures.* [No. XLVIII. Plan I.] From this chamber branched to the south a narrow passage † [No. XLII. same Plan; 72 feet long, and 11 broad.], whose sculptured panels had been purposely destroyed. It led into a great hall, which the workmen did not then explore. ‡ [No. XIX. same Plan.] They continued for a few feet along its western side, and then turning through a doorway, discovered a chamber, from which again, always following the line of wall, they entered a spacious apartment § [Nos. XXIX. and XXXVIII. same Plan. The reader will understand the way in which the excavations were here carried on by referring to the Plan. It will be perceived that there is an uninterrupted line of wall, along which the tunnel was carried, from No XLII. to No. XXXVIII., through entrances b, g, and f.], completely surrounded with bas-reliefs, representing one continuous subject. The Assyrian army was seen fording a broad river amidst wooded mountains. The sculptor had endeavored to convey the idea of a valley by reversing the trees and mountains on one side of the stream. Rivulets flowed from the hills to the river, irrigating in their course vineyards and orchards. The king in his chariot was followed by a long retinue of warriors on foot and on horses richly caparisoned, by led horses with even gayer trappings, and by men bearing on their shoulders his second chariot, which had a yoke ornamented with bosses and carvings. He was preceded by his army, the variously accoutred spearmen and the bowmen forming separate regiments or divisions. After crossing the river they attacked the enemy's strongholds, which they captured one by one, putting to death or carrying into captivity their inhabitants. Unfortunately, the bas-reliefs describing the general result of the campaign, and probably the taking of the principal city, had been destroyed. Over one of the castles could be traced a few letters, giving no clue, however, to its name or site. The captives wore a kind of turban wrapped in several folds round the head, and a short tunic confined at the waist by a broad belt. From the nature of the country it may be conjectured that the sculptures represented a campaign in some part of Armenia, and I am inclined to identify the river with the Euphrates, near whose headwaters, as we learn from the bull inscriptions, Sennacherib waged one of his most important wars.
The slabs at the western end of this chamber were actually curved backwards, showing the enormous pressure that must have taken place from the falling in of the upper part of the building, by which not only the alabaster was bent, but driven into the wall of sundried bricks.
On the north aide of the chamber were two doorways leading inter separate apartments. Each entrance was formed by two colossal bas-reliefs of Dagon, or the fish-god. Unfortunately the upper part of all these figures had been destroyed, but as the lower remained from above the waist we can have no difficulty in restoring the whole, especially as the same image is seen entire on a fine Assyrian cylinder of agate in my possession. It combined the human shape with that of the fish. The head of the fish formed a mitre above that of the man, whilst its scaly back and fanlike tail fell as a cloak behind, leaving the human limbs and feet exposed. The figure wore a fringed tunic, and bore the two sacred emblems, the basket and the cone.* [It is remarkable that on this cylinder the all-seeing eye takes the place of the winged human figure and the globe in the emblem above the sacred tree.]
We can scarcely hesitate to identify this mythic form with the Oannes, or sacred man-fish, who, according to the traditions preserved by Berossus, issued from the Erythraean Sea, instructed the Chaldaeans in all wisdom. In the sciences, and in the fine arts, and was afterwards worshipped as a god in the temples of Babylonia. Its body, says the historian, was that of a fish, but under the head of a fish was that of a man, and to its tail were joined women's feet. Five such monsters rose from the Persian Gulf at fabulous intervals of time. † [Cory's fragments, page 30.] It has been conjectured that this myth denotes the conquest of Chaldaea at some remote and prehistoric period, by a comparatively civilised nation coming in ships to the mouth of the Euphrates. I had already ‡ [See Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. p. 466.] identified with the Babylonian idol a figure in a bas-relief at Khorsabad, having the human form to the waist, and the extremities of a fish. Such figures are also frequently found ion antique cylinders and gems, but those at Kouyunjik agreed even more minutely with the description of Berossus, for the human head was actually beneath that of the fish, whilst the human feet were added to the spreading tail.
The Dagon of the Philistines and of the inhabitants of the Phoenician coast was worshipped, according to the united opinion of the Hebrew commentators on the Bible, under the same form.* [The authorities respecting this god are collected in Selden, "De Dis Syris," and in Beyer's commentary. Abarbanel, in his commentary on Samuel, says that Dagon had the form of a fish, from the middle downwards, with the feet and hands of a man.] When the ark of the Lord was brought into the great temple of the idol at Ashdod, and the statue fell a second time, "the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the fishy part of Dagon was left to him." † [1 Sam. v. 4.] His worship appears to have extended over Syria, as well as Mesopotamia and Chaldaea. He had many temples, as we learn from the Bible, in the country of the Philistines, and it was probably under the ruins of one of them that Samson buried the people of Gaza who had "gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice." ‡ [Judges, xvi. 23.] We also find a Beth-Dagon, or the house of Dagon, amongst the uttermost cities of the children of Judah § [Joshua, XV. 41. From the connection of this verse with the 33rd, it would appear that the town was in a valley.], and another city of the same name in the inheritance of the children of Asher.|| [Joshua, xix. 27. 1 Mac. x. 83.]
Colonel Rawlinson states that he has read the name of Dagon amongst the gods of the Assyrians in the cuneiform inscriptions.
The first doorway, guarded by the fish-gods, led into two small chambers opening into each other, and once panelled with bas-reliefs, the greater part of which had been destroyed. ¶ [Nos. XL. and XLI. Plan I.] On a few fragments, still standing against the walls, could be traced a city on the shore of a sea whose waters were covered with galleys. I shall call these chambers "the chambers of records," for, like "the house of the rolls," or records, which Darius ordered to be searched for the decree of Cyrus, concerning the building of the temple of Jerusalem ** [Ezra, vi. 1.], they appear to have contained the decrees of the Assyrian kings as well as the archives of the empire.
I have mentioned elsewhere †† [Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. p. 185.] that the historical records and public documents of the Assyrians were kept on tablets and cylinders of baked clay. Many specimens have been brought to this country. On a large hexagonal cylinder presented by me to the British Museum are the chronicles of Essarhaddon: on a similar cylinder discovered in the mound of Nebbi Yunus, opposite Mosul, and formerly in the possession of the late Colonel Taylor, are eight years of the annals of Sennacherib; and on a barrel-shaped cylinder long since placed in the British Museum, and known as Bellino's, we have part of the records of the same king.* [In the collection of inscriptions published by the Trustees of the British Museum will be found a transcript of my cylinder; of part of a second, also brought by me to this country; and of Bellino's.] The importance of such relics will be readily understood. They present, in a small compass, an abridgment, or recapitulation, of the inscriptions on the great monuments and palace walls, giving in a chronological series the events of each monarch's reign. The writing is so minute, and the letters are so close one to another, that it requires considerable experience to separate and transcribe them. Fragments of other cylinders have also been discovered, and many inscribed tablets, from three to six inches in length, have been long preserved in England and in various European collections.
The chambers I am describing appear to have been a depository in the palace of Nineveh for such documents. To the height of a foot or more from the floor they were entirely filled with them; some entire, but the greater part broken into many fragments, probably by the falling in of the upper part of the building. They were of different sizes; the largest tablets were flat, and measured about 9 inches by 6-1/2 inches; the smaller were slightly convex, and some were not more than an inch long, with but one or two lines of writing. The cuneiform characters on most of them were singularly sharp and well defined, but so minute in some instances as to be almost illegible without a magnifying glass. These documents appear to be of various kinds. Many are historical records of wars, and distant expeditions undertaken by the Assyrians; some seem to be royal decrees, and are stamped with the name of a king, the son of Essarhaddon; others again, divided into parallel columns by horizontal lines, contain lists of the gods, and probably a register of offerings made in their temples. On one Dr. Hincks has detected a table of the value of certain cuneiform letters, expressed by different alphabetical signs, according to various modes of using them; a most important discovery: on another, apparently a list of the sacred days in each month; and on a third, what seems to be a calendar. It is highly probable that a record of astronomical observations may exist amongst them, for we know from ancient writers, that the Babylonians inscribed such things upon burnt bricks. As we find from the Bavian inscriptions, that the Assyrians kept a very accurate computation of time, we may reasonably expect to obtain valuable chronological tables and some information as to their methods of dividing the year, and even the day. Many are sealed with seals, and may prove to be legal contracts or conveyances of land. Others bear rolled impressions of those engraved cylinders so frequently found in Babylonia and Assyria, by some believed to be amulets. The characters appear to have been formed by a very delicate instrument before the clay was hardened by fire, and the process of accurately making letters so minute and complicated must have required considerable ingenuity and experience. On some tablets are found Phoenician, or cursive Assyrian characters and other signs.
Inscribed Tablet impressed with Seals
Inscribed Tablet, with Inscription at one End in Cursive Characters
The adjoining chambers contained similar relics, but in far smaller numbers. Many cases were filled with these tablets before I left Assyria, and a vast number of them have been found, I understand, since my departure. A large collection of them is already deposited in the British Museum. We cannot overrate their value. They furnish us with materials for the complete decipherment of the cuneiform character, for restoring the language and history of Assyria* [Col. Rawlinson states that he has found the name of Sargon's father and grandfather on one of these clay tablets. (Outlines of Assyrian History, xxix.)], and for inquiring into the customs, sciences, and, we may perhaps even add, literature, of its people.† [According to a tradition, Seth wrote the history and wisdom of the ages preceding the Deluge on burnt and unburnt bricks, or tablets, that they might never perish; for if water destroyed the unburnt, the burnt would remain; and if fire destroyed the baked tablets, those which had not been exposed to heat would only become hardened.] The documents that have thus been discovered at Nineveh probably exceed all that have yet been afforded by the monuments of Egypt. But years must elapse before the innumerable fragments can be put together, and the inscriptions transcribed for the use of those who in England and elsewhere may engage in the study of the cuneiform character. It is to be hoped that the Trustees of the British Museum will undertake the publication of documents of such importance to the history of the ancient world.
The second entrance formed by the fish-gods opened into a small chamber, whose sides had been lined with bas-reliefs representing the siege of a castle, in a country wooded with fir trees, amongst which were long lines of warriors on foot, on horseback, and in chariots. ‡ [No. XXXIX. Plan I.] But there were no remains of inscription, and no peculiarity of costume to identify the conquered people.
A few days after our return to Mosul, I floated down the river on a raft to Nimroud. The flood, which had spread over the plain during my absence in the Desert, had destroyed a part of the village. The mud walls of my own house were falling in. The roof was supported by a few rude beams, and the rooms with their furniture were deep in mud and silt. The stables and outhouses had become a heap of ruins, and the enclosure wall with Ibrahim Agha's loopholes had completely disappeared. The centre of the plain of Nimroud was now a large lake, and the cultivated fields were overspread with slime. The Shemutti gathered round mc as I arrived, and told me of crops destroyed, and of houses swept away.
The workmen had not been idle during my absence and discoveries of considerable interest and importance had been made in the high mound on the level of the artificial platform. The first trenches had been opened in the side of the ravine between the ruins of the tower and those of the north-west palace. A pavement of large square bricks, bearing the usual superscription of the early Nimroud king, was soon uncovered. It led to a wall of sundried bricks, coated with plaster, which proved to be part of a small temple.
I have already mentioned * [Page 125.] that a superstructure of bricks rested upon the stone basement-wall of the tower, at the north-west corner of the mound. It was against the eastern and southern faces of this upper building that the newly discovered temple abutted. Four of its chambers were explored, chiefly by means of tunnels carried through the enormous mass of earth and rubbish in which the ruins were buried. The great entrances were to the east. The principal portal † [Ent. 1. B. Plan II.] was formed by two colossal human-headed lions, sixteen feet and a half high and fifteen feet long. They were flanked by three small winged figures, one above the other, and divided by an ornamental cornice, and between them was an inscribed pavement slab of alabaster. In front of each was a square stone, apparently the pedestal of an altar, and the walls on both sides were adorned with enamelled bricks.
Chaos Monster and Sun God editor Austen Henry Layard, drawing by L. Gruner - 'Monuments of Nineveh, Second Series' plate 5, London, J. Murray, 1853
About thirty feet to the right, or north, of the lion gateway was a second entrance ‡ [Ent. 2. B. same Plan.], at each side of which were two singular figures. One was that of a monster, whose head, of fanciful and hideous form, had long pointed ears and extended jaws, armed with huge teeth. Its body was covered with feathers, its fore-feet were those of a lion, its hind legs ended in the talons of an eagle, and it had spreading wings and the tail of a bird. Behind this strange image was a winged man, whose dress consisted of an upper garment with a skirt of skin or fur, an under robe fringed with tassels, and the sacred horned hat. A long sword was suspended from his shoulders by an embossed belt; sandals, armlets, and bracelets, completed his attire. § [Plate 5, of 2nd series of the Monuments of Nineveh.] He grasped in each hand an object in the form of a double trident, resembling the thunderbolt of the Greek Jove, which he was in the attitude of hurling against the monster, who turned furiously towards him.
Entrance to small Temple (Nimroud).
Fish-God at Entrance to small Temple (Nimroud).
This group appears to represent the bad spirit driven out by a good deity; a fit subject for the entrance to a temple, dedicated to the god of war. The singular combination of forms by which the Assyrian sculptor portrayed the evil principle, so prominent an element in the Chaldaean, and afterwards in the Magian, religious system, cannot fail to strike the reader. The co-existence of a principle of evil and darkness, with the principle of good and light, their contests for supremacy, the temporary success of the former, and its ultimate defeat, appear to have been from the earliest periods essential features in the religious tenets of a large portion of mankind. They thus sought to account for the antagonistic power of evil, exemplified in man by the bad passions, moral and physical infirmities, and death, and in nature by those awful phenomena which occasionally visit the face of the earth, or even by that periodical decay to which nature herself is subject. The belief was not altogether confined to the countries watered by the Euphrates and Tigris, and to Persia. With certain modifications it extended westward, and in the common impersonificatlon of the evil one, which has passed into Christendom, may perhaps be traced the monstrous forms of the Assyrian demon.
On the slabs at right angles to these sculptures, forming the outer part of the entrance, were two colossal human figures, without wings, wearing garlands on their heads, and bearing branches ending in three flowers.
Within the temple, at right angles to the entrance, were sculptured fish-gods, somewhat different in form from those in the palace of Kouyunjik. The fish's head formed part of the three-horned cap usually worn by the winged figures. The tail only reached to the waist of the man, who was dressed in the tunic and long furred robe, commonly seen in the bas-reliefs of Nimroud.* [Specimens of all these figures are now on the British Museum.]