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ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES. 
[GROUND 
ASSYRIAN GALLERIES. 
A suite of three long arid narrow apartments, running 
North and South to a length exceeding 300 feet, with an ad- 
ditional room or transept, crossing from their Southern extre- 
mity, contains the collection of sculptures excavated, chiefly 
by Mr. Layard, in the years 1847—1850, on the site, or 
in the vicinity, of ancient Nineveh. To these has been 
added a further collection from the same region, excavated in 
1853-55, by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam and Mr. W. K. Loftus, 
under the direction of Sir H. C. Rawlinson, K.C.B., at that 
time Her Majesty's Consul-General at Baghdad, and three 
other collections excavated or obtained by Mr. G. Smith, the 
first in a mission to Mesopotamia in the year 1873 undertaken 
by the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph, and presented by 
them to the Museum, and the two last under the direction 
of the Trustees of the British Museum, in the years .187-1 
and 1876. A further collection was also excavated b}^ Mr. 
Hormuzd Rassam in 1878. 
These discoveries were for the most part made in extensive 
mounds, formed by the natural accumulation of the soil over 
the debris of ruined edifices, in the three following localities: — 
1 . Nimroud, believed to be the ancient Calah of Scripture, on 
the banks of the Tigris, about twenty miles below the modern 
Mosul. 2. Khorsabad, a site about ten miles to the North- 
east of Mosul, which was excavated for the French Govern- 
ment by M, Botta, and from which was procured the greater 
part of the valuable collection now in the Louvre, though a 
few specimens of sculpture have also been obtained for the 
British Museum. 3. Kouyunjik, still indicated by local tradi- 
tion as the site of Nineveh, nearly opposite Mosul, on the Tigris. 
This classification of the localities, which correspond broadly 
with three successive periods in Assyrian history, forms the 
basis of the arrangement adopted for the sculptures. 
(1.) The monuments from Nimroud, which may be approxi- 
mately described as ranging from B.C. 880 to B.C. 630, occupy 
the Nimroud Central Saloon, in which the visitor, entering from 
the Greek Galleries, first finds himself; the long apartment 
immediately to the South, called the Nimroud Gallery; and 
