n72 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
February If). 
■ was sufficient to attest the interposition of a miraenlons 
power. 
“ Tlie annals, again, of Esar Haddon, Avho ascended the 
tlirone on the death of Ins father, in about B.C. (iSO, were 
of almost equal interest. He warred in Rhcenicia, in Syria, 
in Asia Minor, and Armenia, in Media, in Snsiana, and in 
! Babylonia. He sent a Queen from his own household to 
' rule over the Arabs of Edom. He must Imve led a groat 
I e.vp<‘dltion into Africa, for lie assumed the distinctive title of 
‘ (Jonqueror of Egypt and (Ethiojiia.’ Finally he obtained 
i the aid of Manasseh, King of .Tudea, together with that of 
i most of the other kings of Syria, in constructing a raagni- 
I tieent palace at Sealah, of which building the ruins are still j 
to be seen at the south-west corner of the great mount of ; 
i Nimrud. 
! “ Tlie son of Esar Haddon, who was named Ashur-hani-hal, 
hut who was almost unknown to the Greeks, had left 
numerous monuments and of great value. Mr. Layard had 
excavated, some years ago, a portion of one of this king’s 
palaces at Nineveh, but recently a far more perfect and more 
highly finished building of the same kind had been dis- | 
covered in another part of the mound of Koi/iinjili. The i 
sculptures in this palace were of the very highest class of . 
Assyrian art. The hunting scenes, indeed, represented on j 
the walls of some of the idiambers were perfectly beautiful, j 
both in design and execution, and a very large selection of 
these had been made for the Assyrian Gallery in the British 
Museum. In illustration of this branch of the subject some 
figures of dogs in “ terra cotta” were -exhibited, which had 
been discovered in a cavity of the wall on removing the slabs 
which formed the wainscoting. They were models ap¬ 
parently of the favourite lion-hounds of the king, the figures 
being painted of different colours, and having other dis¬ 
tinctive marks, while the name of each dog, generally a 
descripitive epithet, had been stamped or incised upon the 
clay. 
. “ The most valuable relics, however, of the time of Aithitr- 
lani-hal, were stated to be the inscribed clay tablets of baked 
clay forming portions of the royal library. The number of 
these tablets already exhumed could not be less than 10,000, 
and they appeared to embrace every branch of science 
known to the ancient Assyrians. They were especially 
valuable in affording explanations of the Assynan system of 
writing, one class of them, unfortunately rarely met with, 
but of which a specimen was exhibited at the table, showing 
how the original pictorial figures had been degraded to 
(diaracters, while others contained tables expressing the 
different syllable values which were attached to each cha¬ 
racter, aud a third class again presented elaborate lists of 
all the simple and compound ideographs of the language, 
with their phonetic equivalents. Even with the important 
help of these explanatory tables, the work of decipherment 
had proceeded slowly, and many difficulties still remained to ! 
be overcome; but without tlieir aid, it was obseiwed, the : 
inscriptions would have continued to the present time to be 
for the most part unintelligible. j 
“ It was now left for Col. Rawlinson to refer to the Baby- | 
Ionian period of histoiy, and to invite the meeting to . 
examine the highly important and original relics of this ' 
pmiod, which were laid out upon the table. The last king ! 
of Nineveh, Asshiir-ebid-ilut, of whom nothing remained but 
a few bricks with half-obliterated legends, had been probably 
dispossessed of his throne by the united armies of the Medes 
and Babylonians in about B.C. (>25. Nabopolassar, who 
either sent or led the expedition against Nineveh, became 
1 from this period the lord paramount of Western Asia. 
The seat of his empire was at Babylon, which he strength¬ 
ened and partially rebuilt. Many tablets had been found 
dating from different periods of his reign, but there was no 
autographic, record, either of his domestic works or of his 
foreign conquests. It was to his son Neluichadnezzar, who 
succeeded him in B.G. tlOti, and who reigned for forty-four 
years, that most of the Babylonian relics belonged, which 
now' filled the museums of Europe. A very interesting 
discovery has been recently made in regard to a building 
erected by this monai’ch, the particubu’s of which wei-e 
described as follows :— 
“ A remaikable ruin, named Birs A^imrnd, and situated on 
a mound in the vicinity of Babylon, had long been an object 
of curiosity to all travellers and antiquaries. The great 
height of the mound, its prodigious extent, and its state of 
tolerable preservation, contrasting so favourably with the 
shapeless heaps in the neighbourhood, had very generally 
suggested the identity of the ruin with the temple of Belus, , 
so minutely described by Herodotus, and as there W('re large 
vitrified masses of brickwork on the summit of the mound, 
which presented the appearance of having been subjected to 
the influence of intense heat, conjectures th.atthe Birs might 
even represent the ruin of the tow'er of Babel, destroyed by 
lightning from heaven, had been not unfrequently hazarded 
and believed. To resolve the many interesting questions con¬ 
nected with this ruin. Colonel Eawlinson undertook, last 
autumn, its systematic examination. Expeiimental trenches 
were opened in veilical lines from the summit to the base, 
and wherever walls were met with they were laid bare by 
horizontal galleries being run along them. After two months 
of preliminary excavation, Colonel Rawlinson visited the 
works, and, profiting by the experience acquired in his 
previous researches, he was able in the course of half an- 
hour’s examination to detect the spots where the com- ! 
memorative records were deposited, and to extract, to the 
utter astonishment of the Arabs, from concealed cavities in 
the walls, the two large inscribed cylinders of baked clay 
which were exhibited to the meeting, and which were now- 
in as fine a state of preservation as when.they were deposited 
in their hiding place by Nebuchadnezzar above twenty-five 
centuries ago. From these cylinders it appeared that the 
temple had been originally built by the king Merodneh-udan- ' 
a/i/d at the close of the tw'elfth century B.C., and probably 
in ct'lebration of his victory over Tiglath-Pileser I.; that it 
had subsequently fallen into ruin, and had been in conse¬ 
quence subjected to a thorough repair by Nebuchadnezzar 
in about B.C. 580. The curious fact w-as further elicited, 
that it was named the ‘ Temple of the Seven Sphei’es,’ and 
that it had been laid out in conformity with the Chaldean 
planetary system, seven stages lieing erected, one above the 
other, according to the order of the seven planets, and their 
stages being coloured after the hue of the planets to which 
they were respectively dedicated. Thus the lower stage 
belonging to Saturn w-as black ; the second sacred to .Tupiter 
was orange; the third or that of Mars was i-ed; the fourth 
of the Sun, golden; the fifth of Venus, white ; the sixth of 
Mercury, blue; and the seventh of the Moon, a silvery 
green. In several cases these colours were still clearly to 
be distinguished, the appropriate hue being obtained by the 
quality and burning of the bricks, and it was thus ascertained 
that the vitrified masses at the summit w'ere the result of 
design and not of accident—the sixtii stage sacred to Mercury- 
having been subjected to an intense and prolonged fire, in 
order to produce the blue slag coloiu-, which w as emblematic 
of that planet. It further appeared, that w-e WTi-e indebted 
to this peculiarity of construction for the preservation of the 
monument, when so many of its sister temples had utterly- 
perished; the blue slag cayi at the summit of the pile resist¬ 
ing the action of the weather, and holding together the low-er 
stages, which would othenvise have crumbled, while it also 
afforded an immoveable pedestal for the upiter stage, and 
for the shrine which probably- crowned the pile. The only- 
other point of interest which w-as ascertained from the 
cy linders was that the temple in question did not belong to 
Babylon, but to the neighbouring city of Borsippa, the title 
of Birs, by which it is now known, being a mere abbreviation 
of the ancient name of the city. 
“ Colonel Rawlinson now adverted to the famous slab of 
Nebuchadnezzar which is deposited in the Museum of the 
India House; and he stated that it contained a descinption i 
of the various works executed by Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon ’ 
and Borsippa, w-hich so nearly corresponded with the account ; 
of Berosus quoted by Josephus, that it would hardly be 
doubted the Chaldee historian had consulted tht' onginal 
autographic recoi’d; and here was introduced the notice of 
a most i-emarkable iiassage of the Tndi.'i House inscriiUion, 
which seemed to contain the official version ado]ited In the 
king, of that teriible calamity that overtook him in tlie 
midst of his career. Ahtuptly breaking oft' from the 
narrative of the architectural decoration of Babylon, the 
inscription denounced the Chaldean astrologers; the king's 
heart was hardened against tliem; ho would grant no bene¬ 
factions for religious 2 mrposes; lie intermitted the w'orship 
of IMerodach, and ymt an end to the sacnfice of victims; he 
