199 
light the illustrated history of the conquests of Shalmaneser. 
There are, however, two good reasons why the mound of Bala- 
wat was left untouched by us for so long a time when we never 
lost an opportunity of trying every good-sized artificial mound 
that we saw or heard of. The first was its insignificance, for it 
could scarcely be seen from any great distance, quite unlike 
the huge mounds of Koynnjik, Khorsabad, and Nimroud ; the 
second, that the sight of so many graves on the top of it would 
naturally debar any attempt being made to disturb it without 
feeling sure that it contained Assyrian remains. Had the 
gravedigger not hit upon this object in 1875, it is quite cer- . 
tain that these gates, which are now in the British Museum, 
would have been at this time lying buried under the grave* 
yard of the Shabbak Koords. 
36. These bronzes appear to have covered a two-leaf cedar 
gate about 20 feet square by 4 inches thick ; and as the 
wood has quite rotted away, we could only find out its thick- 
ness from the bend of the nails that were found fixed to it. 
The scrolls or sheets of bronzes I found did not cover the whole 
wooden frame, but between each of the scrolls there must have 
been some ornamental woodwork or some precious metal of 
which the monument was stripped when the Assyrian mon- 
archy began to decay. The illustrations on this monument, 
which are of bas-reliefs in repousse work, are minute in detail 
and elegant in style, and represent the battle-scenes, marching 
order, and religious ceremonies of the Assyrians. Each plate 
is divided into two tiers, and surrounded by a large number 
of rosettes, which answered two purposes, of ornamenting and 
encircling the top of the nails that fastened the metal to the 
wood. This trophy is so much corroded and broken that a 
good deal of labour has been spent on it to have it renovated 
and put together ; but it is hoped that under the good man- 
agement of Mr. Ready, of the British Museum, the most ac- 
complished restorer of such damaged monuments, the public 
will ere long be able to see it and examine the variety of sub- 
jects depicted thereon. It affords many representations which 
had not appeared before in Assyrian bas-reliefs, and the most 
curious are the pontoons thrown across a river, the mode of the 
Assyrian worship, and the way they performed their sacrifices. 
37. It seems from the different representations on the 
bronzes, that the Assyrian kings acted on some occasions as 
high-priests, and their sacrifices were chosen from the kine and 
sheep, and the mode of killing the animal was by stabbing him 
with a dagger through the heart. There is one scene, differently 
understood by two Assyrian scholars, as either at Nahr-el-Kelb, 
p 2 
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