United States or Norway ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is the Jordan and the Ilyssus that have civilised the modern races. An Arabian tribe, a clan of the Ægean, have been the promulgators of all our knowledge; and we should never have heard of the Pharaohs, of Babylon the great and Nineveh the superb, of Cyrus and of Xerxes, had not it been for Athens and Jerusalem.
He there repaired and renovated the great palace of Asshur-izir-pal, which had been allowed to fall to decay. At Nineveh he repaired the walls of the town, which were ruined in many places, and built a temple to Nebo and Merodach; while in Babylonia he improved the condition of the embankments, by which the distribution of the waters was directed and controlled.
More than one prophet has been able to fall into a sleep that is deathlike. At that time his shade separated from the body and transferred itself in a moment to Tyre, Babylon, or Nineveh, examined what it wished, listened to counsels relating to us, and after the awakening of the prophet gave the most minute account of all that it had witnessed.
We recently had a singularly beautiful application of the knowledge of this principle in the case of the ivory specimens sent from Nineveh by Mr Layard. On their arrival in England, it was discovered that they were rapidly crumbling to pieces.
In a vision of the night it was revealed to her that the city and neighbourhood would be destroyed by water, and the sign promised was that when the stone lions in front of the yamên wept tears of blood, then destruction was near at hand. Like Jonah at Nineveh, the woman, known to-day simply as Niang-tzu, walked up and down the streets of the city, warning all of the coming calamity.
Botta was followed by Austen Henry Layard, who, acting as the agent of the British Museum, conducted excavations during the years 1845-52, first at a mound Nimrud, some fifteen miles to the south of Khorsabad, and afterwards on the site of Nineveh proper, the mound Koyunjik, opposite Mosul, besides visiting and examining other mounds still further to the south within the district of Babylonia proper.
Like all artists of precivilization, the Assyrians placed adornment before convenience, as appeared in Nineveh on the Tigris and Babylon on the Euphrates. At Thebes and Palmyra it was the same, their palaces of alabaster, if one chooses to believe what is said, covering, some of them, a hundred acres. The fashion now is to build upward rather than outward.
Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.
Then we drove to the Louvre, and visited the remains from Nineveh. They are fewer in number than those in the British Museum, which I have not yet seen. But the pair of human-headed, winged bulls are said to be equal in size to any.
Meantime the greatness of Nineveh came to an end. The Babylonians and Medes revolted against it, and it was ruined in the year 612. Sardanapalus succeeded his father at Nineveh, but was weak and luxurious. His brother, Saracus, was so like him, that what seems really to have been the end of Saracus, is generally told of Sardanapalus.
Word Of The Day