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grandson of Sennacherib and son of Esarbaddon, whose namehas 
been read by different Assyriologists as Assur-bani-pal.* This 
palace was also very ranch damaged, but from the nature of the 
bas-reliefs, which were found in good preservation, especially 
those comprising the lion-hunt room, Assyrian art seems to have 
very much improved in that period, for any one who takes the 
trouble to visit the basement Assyrian room in the British Mu- 
seum cannot but help admiring the spirit in which the different 
animals used for the chase are delineated; and whether one looks 
at the lions charging, or suffering from the wounds inflicted, or 
lying dead, hounds chasing the wild ass and deer, and others 
being held by a leash, he sees the true spirit of art therein de- - 
picted.f In this very palace were discovered the Creation and 
Deluge records, with thousands of other inscribed terra-cottas, 
which have thrown lustre on the obscure ancient history, and 
brought to light a number of Hebrew, Assyrian, and other 
Gentile kings whose names had been missing. Amongst the 
latter I discovered a perfect decagon terra-cotta cylinder covered 
with nearly 1,300 lines of fine inscription, recording a history of 
about twenty years of the reign of Assur-bani-pal, or Sardana- 
palus, about 640 years before the Christian era, including an 
account of the utter subjection of Egypt, and his supremacy over 
Western Asia. On a former expedition I had discovered a 
duplicate copy of this cylinder, which was in a dilapidated state, 
and a good deal of it was missing; but this new find has enabled 
Mr. Pinches, of the British Museum, to refill the broken parts. 
30. Formerly Assyrian researchers did not consider ifc worth 
the expense to clear out all the debris from the buried chamber, 
seeing that in those days the reading of the cuneiform characters 
had not attained to the existing knowledge, and so Sir Henry 
Layard and I tried, with the little money we had at our dis- 
posal, to procure for the British Museum as many records of 
the past as possible engraved on marble and stone. I do not 
mean to say that we threw away any inscription found, and 
that we had only valued sculptured antiquities ; but as we had 
only a certain amount to spend, and so many months in which 
* Assur-iddenna-pal and Assur-iddenna-palla, supposed to be Sardana- 
palus of the Greek and Bom an legends. Hunting, it seems, was a great 
recreation of the Assyrian kings, because we find that at the north-west 
palace at Nimroud, Assur-nazir-pal, the father of Shalmaneser, is represented 
on the sculptures engaged in the lion and bull hunt. 
t On viewing the sculptures of the lion hunt in this chamber it reminds 
one of the inspired words of Nahum in the 11th verse of the second chapter 
where it is said, “ "Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding-place of 
the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion’s 
whelp, and none made them afraid ? ” 
