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Hence we may fairly assume that the vases, jars, bronzes, glass bottles, carved ornaments in ivory and mother-of-pearl, engraved gems, bells, dishes, earrings, arms, working implements, etc., which have been found at Nimrud, Khorsabad, and Koyunjik, are mainly the handiwork of the Assyrians.
About nine miles from the north-east angle of the wall of Nineveh, in a direction a very little east of north, stands the ruin known as Khorsabad, from a small village which formerly occupied its summit the scene of the labors of M. Botta, who was the first to disentomb from among the mounds of Mesopotamia the relics of an Assyrian palace.
The practice had not been unknown to previous monarchs, but it had never been employed by any so generally or on so grand a scale as it was by this king. From this sketch of Sargon's wars, we may now proceed to a brief consideration of his great works. The magnificent palace which he erected at Khorsabad was by far the most important of his constructions.
Folding-doors were the most common in palaces. They were not hung upon hinges, like modern doors, but, like those of the classical nations, turned upon pivots. At Khorsabad the pavement slabs in the doorways showed everywhere the holes in which these pivots had worked, while in no instance did the wall at the side present any trace of the insertion of a hinge.
Our best reason for accepting all these pieces of evidence as corroborative of the view taken by MM. Flandin, Loftus, Place, and Thomas is, in the first place, the incontestable fact that the entrances to the town of Khorsabad were passages roofed with barrel vaults; secondly, the presence amid the debris of the fragmentary arches above described; thirdly, the depth of the mass of broken earth within the walls of each chamber; finally, the singular thickness of the walls, which is only to be satisfactorily explained by the supposition that the architect had to provide solid abutments for arches that had no little weight to carry.
In front of the temple, but not exactly opposite its centre, may be seen the prophylaea, consisting of a squared doorway placed under a battlemented wall, between two towers also battlemented. It is curious that the paths do not lead to the propylaea, but seen to curve round the hill. Remains of ziggurats similar to this have been discovered at Khorsabad, at Nimrud, and at Kileh-Sherghat.
If so, this point was the original centre of the great city of Nineveh that part said to have been built by Asshur; while the surrounding mounds of Mosul, Khorsabad, and Kouyunjik, cover ruins of a later date. Of Mr. The room, as the visitor will at once perceive, is divided into eleven compartments the first being that to the left on entering. Here he will begin his inspection of
Why is it that the whole of those monuments, with the single exception of the so-called Observatory of Khorsabad, are now mere heaps of formless dust, fulfilling to the letter the biblical prophecies as to the fate of Nineveh and Babylon? One traveller tells us how when he approached the Birs-Nimroud he saw wolves stretched upon its slopes and basking in the sun.
The systematic and thorough manner in which De Sarzec, with inexhaustible patience, explored the ancient city, has resulted in largely extending our knowledge of the most ancient period of Babylonian history as yet known to us. The Telloh finds were forwarded to the Louvre, which in this way secured a collection from the south that formed a worthy complement to the Khorsabad antiquities.
The closed petals of the one the open ones of the other and the divisions of the calix are indicated in a fashion that happily combines truth with convention. Fragment of a threshold; from Khorsabad. Louvre. Door ornament; from Kouyundjik. The painter also made use of this motive.
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