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

126 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
Layard disclosed the remains of an earlier building 1 and a
solitary brick arch beneath the palace or temple constructed
by Ashuretililani, while in the ramparts of earth marking
the walls of Calah, he traced
fifty-eight towers to the north,
and about fifty to the east, at the same time establishing the
existence of a number ol approaches or stairways on the
four different sides of the enclosed platform.
In addition to his successful excavations at Nineveh and
Calah, and to his less fortunate operations at Babylon and
NufTar, about which we shall
have to say a few words later,
Layard, either himself or through one of his native agents,
cut trial trenches into various other mounds, extending his
researches even as far west as the Khabur. Most of these
examinations were carried on too hastily and without method,
and therefore have little value, while others, like those carried
on in the mounds of Bahshiqa, Karamles, Lak, Shemamyk,
Sherif Khan, Abu Marya, and 'Arban, yielded
inscribed bricks or slabs from which the Assyrian origin of
these ruins could be established. At Sherif Khan, on the
Tigris, three miles to the north of Qoyunjuk, he discovered
even remains of two Assyrian temples and inscribed limestone
slabs from a palace which Esarhaddon had erected for
his son, Ashurbanapal, at Tarbisu : at Qal'at Shirgat he
gathered fragments of two large octagonal terra-cotta prisms
of Tiglath-Pileser I. (about i ioo b. c.) ;
and at 'Arban, on
the Biblical Habor, he conducted personal excavations for
three weeks, bringing to light two pairs of winged bulls,
a large lion with extended jaws, similar to those found in
one of the small temples at Nimrud, and pieces of carved
stone and painted brick — all
belonging to the " palace " of
a man otherwise unknown, who, to judge from his style of
art,
must have lived about the time of Ashurnasirapal II.
1
Constructed by Shalmaneser II., as was proved by George Smith more
than twenty years later. Comp. his "Assyrian Discoveries," 3d ed., New
York, 1876, pp. 76-79.