Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURING 19 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 117
examination by experimental shafts and trial trenches, and
to make the excavation of the southwest palace of Oovunjuk
the chief object of the present campaign. Like the southwest
edifice at Nimrud, the latter had been destroyed by
fire, when the Median armies, murdering and pillaging,
entered the gates of Nineveh (606 b. a). Consequently,
hundreds of the most elaborate sculptures were found
cracked and broken, or almost entirely reduced to lime.
Yet many had more or less escaped the results of the great
conflagration, thus allowing the explorer to determine the
spirited scenes which once adorned the walls of the principal
chambers.
Battles and victories, sieges and conquests, hunting
scenes and sacrifices to the gods, were again the leading
representations. But in the general conception of the subject,
in the treatment of the costumes worn by the Assyrian
The Ruins of Nineveh, from the North
warriors, as well as by the subdued nations, in the character
of the ornaments, in the arrangement of the inscriptions,
and in many other important details, there is a marked difference
between the bas-reliefs in the palace of Sennacherib
and those of the older palaces at Nimrud. There the sculptured
slabs showed large figures or simple groups, divided
into two friezes, an upper and a lower one, by intervening