with the enemy; the siege of a castle, in which was represented a bucket attached to a pulley; a pair of human-headed bulls in low relief; and a king placing his foot on the neck of a captive, and raising a spear in his right hand, the only instance in which he is represented with this weapon-a bas-relief illustrating

Part of a bas-relief, showing a Pulley, and a Warrior cutting a Bucket from a Rope,

the passage of Scripture which describes the captains of Israel placing their feet upon the necks of the captive kings: "And it came to pass, when they brought out those kings unto Joshua, that Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said unto the captains of the men of war which went with him, Come near, and put your feet upon the necks of these kings. And they

came near, and put their feet upon the necks of them."*

Το make a footstool of mine enemies is a common biblical expression of triumph. A procession of warriors carrying away the idols of a conquered nation, was highly interesting on account of the figures of the gods. The first was that of a female seated on a high-backed chair, holding a ring in one hand and a kind of fan in the other Her face was in full, and she wore the horned cap surmounted by a star. The next figure was also that of a seated female, wearing a similar cap and holding a ring in one hand. The third was partly concealed by a screen placed on a chair; and the fourth was that of a man walking, raising an axe in one hand and grasping an object resembling the conventional thunderbolt of the Greek Jove, in the other. The female figures may be those of Hera and Rhea, who were worshipped in the temple of Babylon; whilst the god may be identified with Baal or Belus, the supreme deity of the Semitic races, who, according to Diodorus Siculus, was represented in the act of walking. This bas-relief illustrates more than one passage in the Bible. Hosea prophesied that the idol of Samaria should be carried away by the Assyrianst; and Jeremiah declares that the Babylonians should burn the gods of the Egyptians, and carry them away captive. In the epistle supposed to have been written by the Prophet Jeremiah to the captive Jews, to warn them against the idolatries of the Babylonians, we find the following remarkable description of the gods represented in the Assyrian sculptures. "Now shall ye see, in Babylon, gods of silver, and of gold, and of wood, borne upon shoulders. And he that cannot put to death one that offendeth him holdeth a sceptre, as though he were a judge of the country. He hath also in his right hand a dagger and an axe."§ We learn from the same epistle that these idols were of wood laid over with gold, and that parts of them were polished by the workmen, that crowns were placed on their heads, that they were decked

+ Ch. x. 6.

* Joshua, x. 24. Ch. xliii. 12. § That the Jews looked upon this Epistle as genuine, may be inferred from the reference to it in 2 Maccab. xi. 2, 3.

*

out in garments and purple raiment, and that fires or lamps were kept burning before them. Jeremiah describes the gods of the heathen as cut out of a tree of the forest, decked with silver and gold fastened with nails, and with blue and purple garments. The star above the horned-cap of the figures in the bas-relief appears to point to an astral system personified in the idols; and it is to this custom of placing the star above the head of the god to which the Prophet Amos probably alludes, when he condemns the house of Israel for having "borne the tabernacle of Moloch and Chiun, their images and the star of their god, which they had made for themselves." †

Some of the sculptures had been carefully erased, and only a few traces of the figures remained. Several of the bas-reliefs were accompanied by descriptive inscriptions; and on the pavement was discovered a tablet recording the conquests of a king whose name occurs in no other ruins yet discovered, and to whom no place can yet be assigned in the Assyrian royal lists.

The three entrances to the south of the palace appear to have led into a magnificent hall, about 220 feet in length, the northern entrance to which was also formed by a pair of humanheaded bulls. The side walls had in some places completely disappeared, and the sculptures which were still standing had all suffered more or less from the conflagration and subsequent long exposure to the atmosphere.

As the level of the S. W. palace was considerably above that of the N. W., and as the site of many sculptures in it had not been discovered, it appeared to me possible that it had been built over the ruins of some more ancient building. By way of experiment, therefore, I directed long and very deep trenches to be opened in three different directions: nothing, however, was found, but a box or square hole, twenty feet beneath the surface, formed by bricks carefully fitted together, and containing several small idols in unbaked clay. They