GROUND FLOOR.] ASSYRIAN TRANSEPT. 
105 
In the centre of the room are three Table Cases containing several 
miscellaneous small articles of bronze, iron, and terracotta. 
Returning up the staircase, and passing again through the 
Nimroud Gallery, the visitor reaches the 
ASSYRIAN TRANSEPT. 
The first or Western Compartment, contains the remainder 
of the monuments of Assur-nazir-pal, of which the principal 
part has been described in the Nimroud Gallery. 
In the middle is a high arched slab, having in front a bas-relief of 
the king, with various sacred symbols, and on the sides and back 
an invocation to the Assyrian gods, and a chronicle of the king's con- 
quests. Before it stands an altar, which originally was so placed, at 
the entrance to the temple of the " God of War." 
At the sides stand a pair of colossal human-headed lions, winged, 
and triple-horned, which originally flanked a doorway in the North-west 
edifice. With these terminates the series from Nimroud. 
Behind these are two torsos with inscriptions, one of black stone, 
bearing the name of an ancient Chaldean king; the other of a goddess, 
found at Kouyunjik, with the name of Assur-bel-kala, an Assyrian 
monarch. 
On the West wall are casts and sculptures in relief and inscriptions 
from the palace of the Persian monarchs, about 500 b c. at Persepolis ; 
and on the South wall casts of Pehlevi inscriptions at Hadji Abad 
in its vicinity. 
Near there are cases containing antiquities excavated at Dali or 
Idalium, in Cyprus, by Mr. R. H. Lang, in 1870. Amongst them is 
an inscription in the Phrnician and Cyprian languages, dated in the 
reign of Melekiatun, about b.c. 370 ; and against the columns on the 
North side the upper half of the statue of a deity or monarch, and 
another statue from the same place. 
On the East side of this Transept, is the Khorsabad Com- 
partment, containing monuments from the palace of Sargina, 
the founder of the later Assyrian dynasty, about B.C. 721. 
Two colossal human-headed bulls, corresponding exactly in dimen- 
sions and style with the pair now in the Louvre at Paris, are placed as 
at the entrance of a chamber, and beside these, two colossal figures of 
mythological character. This entire group was obtained from Khorsa- 
bad by Sir H. C. Rawlinson, K.C.B., in 1849. 
Within the recess thus formed are several bas-reliefs procured from 
the same place in 1847 by Mr. Hector, a merchant residing at 
Baghdad. They are chiefly fragmentary figures from a more extensive 
series, some on a large scale, and retaining remains of colour. The 
horses' heads, facing the window, are richly and carefully finished. 
Below these is the only slab obtained by Mr. Layard from 
Khorsabad ; it is in black marble. 
