It was not to be long before Layard’s efforts were crowned with success. By the end of November several bas-reliefs were laid bare, whose execution appeared to surpass even those of the sculptures of Khorsabad, and which were accompanied by cuneiform inscriptions. In spite of many interruptions the work proceeded rigorously, and manifold were the discoveries thus brought to light. One deserving of special interest was that of the gigantic head of one of the colossal winged lions, with men’s heads, which the Assyrians placed at the entrance of their palaces for the sake of spreading terror amongst the inhabitants of surrounding districts. For it was everywhere whispered and believed that none other than Nimrod in person had risen from the earth. All this had occurred in the spring of the year 1846. The funds for the excavations lasted till the middle of June 1847; and when Layard returned to Europe he had laid bare in Nimrud no less than three great Assyrian royal palaces, namely: the grand northwestern palace, which Asshurnazirpal had built (884-861 B.C.) on the ruins of an ancient structure (dating from Shalmaneser I, the founder of Calah, circa 1300 B.C.?); the central palace, probably built by Asshurnazirpal’s successor, Shalmaneser II (a predecessor of the biblical Shalmaneser), where was found the famous black obelisk; and lastly, Esarhaddon’s once magnificent southwestern palace (681-669 B.C.). The northwestern palace yielded the richest spoiclass="underline" it was also far better preserved than the contents of Sargon’s palace at Khorsabad, where Botta had made his excavations. As Sir Stratford Canning had presented the British Museum with everything moveable which Layard had discovered and brought to light, even at the end of this first expedition of Layard’s, a collection of Assyrian antiquities (principally bas-reliefs and inscriptions), such as existed nowhere else, was despatched to London. The unwearied energy of the discoverer of Nineveh succeeded in taking it unhurt, first to Bassorah, from whence the valuable freight was forwarded to the ship—truly not the smallest part of the task he had begun so gloriously, and now still more gloriously accomplished.
The period which followed was employed by Layard in summarising the results obtained in a vigorous narrative, furnished with many illustrations, the work called Nineveh and its Remains, which was published just as Layard was on the point of going to Assyria for the second time—on this occasion at the expense of the British Museum. The sensation which the book created in England was enormous, and its most important result was that henceforth the government turned its attention to the excavations. So in 1849 Layard was given leave of absence from his diplomatic post at Constantinople for the purpose of making new discoveries on Assyrian soil, and Hormuzd Rassam, who had already been his assistant and happened just then to be in London, was sent after him (also officially).
Bas-relief representing a Fortified City, a River with a Boat and Raft, and a Canal
(Found at Kuyunjik.—Layard)
If on the first expedition Layard had done little more than explore Nimrud (the ancient Calah), the labours of the second (1849-1851), were on the contrary practically limited to the mounds of ruins of Kuyunjik with Neby Yunus, the site of Nineveh itself. Here Botta had first begun his excavations, but entirely without success, for he had merely caused diggings to be made to the depth of a few feet, and without any method, instead of making his chief object the remains of the platform, on which the buildings he was seeking had been erected. And it was here that Layard, at the end of his first expedition, and after having been obliged to dig twenty feet down, had discovered Sennacherib’s southwestern palace (705-682 B.C.). But the real fruits of this discovery were now the object of the second undertaking. For if in this Layard was still occupied with Nimrud, the work there was only a species of gleaning, the excavations and discoveries in Arban, on the Khabur and in Bavian were, in comparison with the rest, only a short trial-trip, and the main thing still remained the minute investigation and laying bare of the great southwestern palace in Kuyunjik. It was not till this was finished that he employed the rest of his time and money in a visit to Babylonia (at the end of 1850), of which, however, Layard himself says “that they (i.e. the discoveries amongst the ruins of ancient Babylon) were far fewer and of far less importance than he had expected”; he also gave the first exact description of the mounds of Niffer, the ancient Nippur, southeast of Babylon. All his experiences and all the results of this second expedition were set down by Layard in the Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, a work, seven hundred pages in length and with many illustrations, besides plans and maps, which appeared in London as early as the beginning of the year 1853.
This popular book had, like the former one, a prodigious success, and was shortly after translated into German; as a supplement to it Layard’s great publications were announced, namely, that magnificent work, the Monuments of Nineveh, and a volume of inscriptions which was the forerunner to the great work on inscriptions published by the British Museum in five volumes (1861-1884).
But to return to Layard’s excavations which he resumed in the middle of October, 1849, at the place where he had interrupted them two years before. It is simply impossible within a short space to give a clear idea of what Layard and his workmen, assisted by Hormuzd Rassam, brought to light before the middle of the year 1850 in that southwestern palace of Sennacherib which Asshurbanapal restored. Any one who would form a clear idea of it must peruse Layard’s magnificent descriptions of it for himself. Assyrian antiquity rose from the earth and grew more and more distinct, and so intelligible was the language of the hundreds of bas-reliefs, that, even without understanding the inscriptions, every one was in a position to construct for himself a tolerably clear picture of the manners and customs, the life and occupations, in short, the whole civilisation of the ancient Assyrians, and this merely from the illustrations in Layard’s two popular books. But the most important discovery made in this palace, indeed the most important in its results of all the Assyrian excavations, was the remains of a regular library of thousands of clay tablets, which were heaped up in two chambers, covering the floor a foot thick. These the restorer of the palace, the accomplished king Asshurbanapal (668 B.C., the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, and Asnapper of the Bible) had had collected, and had deposited them, partly here, partly (probably in duplicate) in other palaces, as in particular in the northern palace, which was also in Kuyunjik, and was discovered by Rassam. The tablets of gray and yellow clay found in the so-called Lion Room of Asshurbanapal’s northern palace, were in most cases broken into smaller or larger fragments, probably because in the general ruin they had fallen down from the upper story into the space in which they covered the ground; many, however, were still whole. Of course only later investigation could succeed in bringing the broken fragments together again, and then only partially; one of these tablets, restored by piecing together sixteen fragments, gives the Babylonian story of the Flood, which George Smith successfully recognised from amongst the thousands of scattered fragments; the reader will appreciate the condition in which most of these clay book-pages (to use a paradoxical expression) have come down to us. The size of the tablets seldom exceeds nine by six and a half inches; but many, especially tablets containing contracts, were considerably smaller. The greater number bore the inscription, “Series of tablets …, tablet number …; Palace of Asshurbanapal, king of the universe, king of Assyria …,” after which came a series of phrases, mostly stereotyped, which indicates the tablet in question as belonging to the library of Asshurbanapal, the great collector of ancient Babylonian literature in Assyrian character. In the restored tablet of the Flood, the place of the signature is clearly recognisable on the first of the columns; it is the last of the columns, for they are always to be counted from right to left (instead of from left to right). But especially clear to the eye of a layman is the addition to the signature, which represents a kind of library mark, unlike that of the specially prized Ishtar hymn in two languages (S. M. 954, British Museum); the latter differs somewhat from the ordinary tenor of these signatures, inasmuch as a whole genealogy is put, instead of the sentence usual elsewhere; translated literally it runs: