70 
DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES. [GROUND 
^nd Muqueyer, all dating from the most remote antiquity, 
and the last supposed to represent the Biblical " Ur of the 
Ohaldees/' 2. The Birs-i-Nimirud, commonly regarded as the 
remains of the Tower of Babel, but more probably the site 
■of the ancient fortress of Borsippa, the earhest portion of v/hich 
was erected by Tiglath Pileser I. about B.C. 1120, though it 
was entirely rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar. 3. The mounds of 
Babylon itself, which contain no monuments earlier than the 
reign of Nebuchadnezzar. 
In accordance with the system here pm^sued under which 
the visitor to the sculpture galleries is conducted, as far as pos- 
sible, continuously from the later monuments to the earlier, it 
is necessary, after quittmg the Greek collection, to pass through 
the Nimroud Central Saloon, by its North door, to the 
KOTJYUNJIK GALLERY. 
The Collection of ba,s-reliefs in this room was procured by 
Layard, in 1849 and 1850, from the remains of a very 
extensive Assyrian edifice at Kouyunjik, which appears, from 
the inscriptions remaining on many of its sculptures, to have 
been the palace of Sennacherib, who is supposed to have com- 
menced his reign about B.C. 721. It was subsequently occu- 
pied by his grandson Ashurbanipal, who reigned towards the 
middle of the seventh century B.C. Monuments of both these 
kings are included in the collection. Those of Sennacherib 
-are sculptured generally in gypsum or alabaster, those of 
Ashurbanipal in a harder limestone. Most of the sculptures 
were split and shattered by the action of fire, the palace 
having apparently been burnt, probably at the destruction of 
Nineveh : indeed, many singly slabs reached this country in 
300 or 400 pieces. These have been simply rejoined, with- 
out attempt at restoration. To the left on entering is — 
No. 1. A cast from a bas-relief cut in the rock, at the mouth of the 
Nahr-el-Kelb River, near Beyrout, in Syria, close to the immemorial 
highway between Egypt and Asia Minor. It represents Sennacherib, 
standing in the conventional attitude of worship, with sacred or sym- 
boHcal objects above him, and is covered with a cuneiform inscription* 
In the rock, adjoining the original relief, are six similar Assyrian 
tablets, and three Egyptian bas-reliefs, with hieroglyphic inscriptions, 
bearing tlie name of Jiameses XL, who at an earlier period is supposed 
to have passed through Palestine. 
