Volume 1

Nineveh and its remains: with an account of a visit to the Chaldaean Christians of Kurdistan, and the Yezidis, or devil-worshippers; and an enquiry into the manners and arts of the ancient Assyrians / by Austen Henry Layard.

  • Layard, Austen Henry, 1817-1894.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Nineveh and its remains: with an account of a visit to the Chaldaean Christians of Kurdistan, and the Yezidis, or devil-worshippers; and an enquiry into the manners and arts of the ancient Assyrians / by Austen Henry Layard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    forth for ages to testify her early power and renown ; whilst those before me had but now appeared to bear witness, in the words of the prophet, that once “ the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches and with a shadowing shroud of an high stature ; and his toy> was among the thick boughs .... his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long, because of the multitude of waters when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations;” for now is “ Nineveh a desolation and dry like a wilder- ness, and flocks lie down in the midst of her: all the beasts of the nations, both the cormorant and bittern, lodge in the upper lintels of it ; their voice sings in the windows ; and desolation is in the thresholds.” * Behind the lions was another chamber, f I un- covered about fifty feet of its northern wall. On each slab was carved the winged figure with the horned cap, fir-cone, and square vessel or basket. They were in pairs facing one another, and divided by an emblematical tree, similar to that on the corner stone in chamber B. All these bas-reliefs were in- ienor m e.vecution, and finish, to those previously discovered. ♦ Ezekiel, xxxi. 3 t Cliamber C.