By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



58 



in Egypt, have all described the process as it is still exhibited in 

 bas-reliefs or paintings on the walls ; and I proceed at once to 

 extract from their respective writings a short epitome of the des- 

 criptions they have given of these most interesting illustrations 

 of the mechanical skill of the ancients. 



With regard to Assyria, Mr. Layard 1 has elaborately represented 

 in his "Monuments of Nineveh," and Mr. Rawlinson 8 has detailed 

 with considerable minuteness, from the bas-reliefs discovered at 

 Koyunjik, all the particulars with reference to the transport of the 

 colossal bulls from the quarry to the palace gateways. The very 

 fact that they were able to transport masses of stone many tons in 

 weight, over a considerable space of ground, and to place them on 

 the summits of artificial platforms from thirty to eighty or ninety 

 feet high, would alone indicate considerable mechanical power. 

 The further fact, now made clear from the bas-reliefs, that they 

 wrought all the elaborate carving of the colossi before they pro- 

 ceeded to raise them or put them in place, 3 is an additional argu- 

 ment of their skill, since it shows that they had no fear of any 

 accident happening in the transport. It appears from the repre- 

 sentations, that they placed their colossus in a standing posture, 

 not on a truck of any kind, but on a huge wooden sledge, and 

 cased it with an openwork of spars; 4 and then by means of well 

 adjusted ropes attached to various portions of the framework, the 

 workmen were enabled to steady the bulky mass, while large gangs 

 of men dragged the sledge along in front, as I have already des- 

 cribed in a former paper. 5 



This is good and conclusive evidence as regards the transport of 

 colossal stones in Assyria. Let us now see what the paintings on 



1 Layard' s Monuments of Nineveh, 2nd series, plates x. to xvii. 



2 Bawlinson's Five great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, vol. i. 

 pp. 495—499. 



3 Mr. Layard at first imagined that the contrary was the case [Nineveh and 

 its Remains, vol. ii., p. 318], but his Koyunjik discoveries convinced him of his 

 error. [Nineveh and Babylon, pp. 105, 106.] 



4 The nineteenth century could make no improvement upon this : Mr. Layard 

 tells us that "precisely the same framework was used for moving the great 

 sculptures now in the British Museum. [Nineveh and Babylon, p. 112, note.] 



5 Magazine, vol. ix., p. 131. 



