40 NINEVEH AND ITS DISCOVERERS. a pole was finally added, furnished with rings, to admit a rope, by which the carriage might be drawn. In order to raise the bull, and place it on the carriage which stood in the plain below, at a distance of 200 feet, it was necessary to make a road through the mound, 15 feet wide, and in some places 20 feet deep. The figure was to be lowered from its pedestal on its back, a work of no small difficulty; for during its descent, ropes, which were the only means of supporting it, might break, and involve the destruction of the whole. Although ropes had been sent for from Aleppo, the best of them were too small to be relied on. A stout palm-fibre hawser had been obtained from Baghdad, and two pairs of blocks, and a pair of jack-screws had been borrowed from the stores of the Euphrates expedition. These were all the resources available for removing the bull and lion. By the middle of March the earth and rubbish had been cleared away from the bull, which was now retained in its place only by beams which sprang from the opposite side of the excavation. Well-greased sleepers of poplar were laid down on the ground parallel to the sculpture, and over these several thick rollers on which the object was to be lowered. A deep trench had been cut in the solid mass of the unburnt brick wall at some distance behind and above the bull, and the square block, thus exposed, formed a sort of column, round which the ropes used for lowering the bull might be run during the operation. Two of the pulleys were secured to this mass of earth by a coil of ropes, and two others to the bull, and between these two points the tackle worked. On each side of the bull stood a large party of Arabs, holding the ends of the ropes, and some powerful Chaldeans were directed to hold strong beams which they were to remove gradually, so as to reduce the strain upon the ropes. All being ready, Layard ordered the men to strike out the supporting wedges. Still the bull remained erect, until at last five or six men tilted it over. The Baghdad hawser almost broke with the strain, and wore its way into the block of earth around which it was carried, but the smaller ropes did their work well, and the bull began to descend slowly. As the bull neared the roller, the beams could no longer be used, and the entire strain was thrown on the ropes, which stretched and creaked more than ever; at length the ropes all broke together, and the bull fell forward to the ground. A silent moment of suspense followed. Layard leaped into the trenches, expecting to see the bull in fragments. It was entire and uninjured! A sort of tram-way was laid down to the end of the track, over which the bull was to be drawn on rollers to the edge of the mound; and thus the journey to the end of the trench was speedily accomplished. When the bull arrived at the sloping edge of the mound, it was lowered into the cart by digging away the soil. All was now ready for proceeding to the river, and the buffaloes which were at first procured refusing to pull at the weight, the Arabs and Chaldeans, assisted by the villagers, in all 300 men, drew the cart. On reaching the village of Nimroud, the procession was brought to a sudden halt. Two wheels of the cart were seen buried in the ground; and the ropes were broken in the attempt to extricate the vehicle. The wheels had sunk in a concealed corn-pit, in which some villager had formerly stored his grain. Layard was compelled to leave the sculpture on the spot, with a guard. In the course of the night some of the adventurous Bedouins, attracted by the packing materials round the sculptures, had fallen on the workmen. They were beaten off, but left their mark; for a ball indented the side of the bull. Next morning the wheels were raised, the procession was again in motion, and, after some temporary obstructions, the bull was placed on the platform from which it was to slide to the raft. Here a small camp of Arabs was formed to guard the bull until its companion, the lion, should be brought down, and the two embarked together for Baghdad. On the 20th of April, Layard determined to attempt the embarkation of his treasures. The raft lay alongside the platform and the two sculptures were so placed on beams, that on the withdrawal of the wedges they would slide into the centre of the raft, along an inclined plane formed of beams of poplar wood, which were well greased. The large raft, supported by six hundred skins, was brought close to the bank; the wedges were removed, and the bull was slowly lowered into its place. The lion was next placed on a second 42 NINEVEH AND ITS DISCOVERERS. similar raft. In a few hours the two sculptures were properly secured, and by night-fall they were ready to set out on their long journey. The working party was now disbanded, and by the middle of May, 1847, the excavations at Nimroud were finished. Layard took a parting glance at the ruins, and on the 24th of June he bade farewell to the Arabs, and departed on his journey to Constantinople. It now becomes necessary to inquire what biblical and classical writers had been thinking and saying about the buried cities in the East, and to examine also in detail the discoveries of Botta, at Khorsabad. 1. Babel. 2. Erech. 3. Accad. 4. Calneh. 5. Nineveh. 6. Rehoboth. 7. Calah. Fig. 9.-MAP OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. 8. Resen. 11. Ecbatana. 15. Jerusalem. 16. Tyre. 18. Damascus. 19. Palmyra, 21. Tarsus. 22. Iconium. N.B.-The first eight numbers refer to the cities in the order in which they occur in the tenth chapter of Genesis. SECTION II. HISTORICAL. CHAPTER I. ASSYRIA AND MESOPOTAMIA. A GLANCE backwards-more than two thousand years-becomes necessary, when we ask what Nineveh was understood 44 ASSYRIA AND MESOPOTAMIA. to be before the excavations of Botta and Layard. We have two sources of information on the subject, the sacred writers, and the ancient Greek and Roman historians. - From the sacred writers we learn that the long forborne vengeance of Heaven, overtaking the impious pride of the antediluvian world, had swept from the face of the earth the numerous tribes of Adam, reserving only the family of Noah, to make him the second progenitor of the human race. The three sons of the Patriarch had gone forth to assume other new sovereignties, and to people the earth. At this period, within a century after the flood, and while Noah was in the full vigour of his power, his great-grandson, Nimrod, the founder of the earliest post-diluvian cities, is introduced on the historic page. "And Cush begat Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." Although the scriptural account of Nimrod, the first monarch on record, is short, yet so much more of him is said than of any other of the immediate posterity of Noah, as to afford ample testimony to his strength of character and superior natural endowments. The Hebrew word Gibbor, which the vulgate renders "mighty one," is by the Septuagint translated "giant;" but the subsequent "mighty hunter," would intimate that he not only sought to hunt wild beasts, but to subdue men also; and Ezekiel is understood by some commentators to give the name of hunters to all tyrants. Nevertheless, some think that the words "before the Lord," may be taken in a favourable sense; and Calmet admits that they are commonly understood as heightening the good qualities of any one. It must be allowed that there is nothing in the history of Nimrod which carries an air of reproach excepting his name, which signifies "rebellion of him that rules," or, according to Gesenius, "extremely impious rebel;" but it is this name which has caused commentators to represent him as a usurper and oppressor, and as instigating the descendants of Noah to build the Tower of 1 Genesis, x. 8-10. 2 Ezekiel, xxxii. 30. |