406 
MESCHED ALI. 
casing, and through the apertures, figures sculptured in stone 
were clearly traceable. He examined it closer, and could plainly 
discover the outlines of many more, under the cement. This 
western wall, he adds, was the whole that was left of the very 
old original building. It is possible that these unbelievers may 
have been the Chaldseans ; and here may be preserved, by the 
very means intended to destroy, the only specimen of their bas- 
relief which has been found in the whole country. We are told 
by some authors, that historical bas-reliefs were the ornaments 
of their ancient palace-walls; and hence we may suppose the like 
ornament would be used for their temples also. The oldest 
references amongst the Greeks to the rites of their religion, 
(which was in fact the same as the Chaldsean,) give intima¬ 
tions of this style of speaking to the eye, in their temples; and 
we find Euripides making Ion, in describing the temple at 
Delphi, particularly observe the battle of the giants, sculptured 
on the wall in stone. The Egyptian temples are not wanting in 
statuary of every kind. But it is not necessary to confine the 
wall of the Mesched Ali to a temple ; it may have belonged to 
the residence of some great personage; yet, at any rate, it was 
an object of great interest to an antiquarian to examine; and 
whether the work were of ancient, or more modern unbelievers , 
my mortification was extreme, when, so near the spot, I was 
forced to abandon it. 
Small figures, both in bronze and clay, are frequently picked 
up all over the ruins of Babylon ; but the only large vestiges of 
sculpture that I have been able to trace, are the colossal figure of 
the lion which Mr. Rich discovered in the depths of the Kasr, 
standing on a pedestal of coarse grey granite, of very rude 
workmanship ; and a large fragment of a figure, which the same 
