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Art VII.—Notes on Abu Shahrein and Tel el Lahm.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2011

J. E. Taylor Esq
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Extract

Although my visit this year to Abu Shahrein has been unproductive of any very important results, yet the description of the ruins will, I hope, prove sufficiently interesting, to render the transcription of the rough notes I made upon the spot, not altogether superfluous.

Type
Original Communications
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 15 , January 1854 , pp. 404 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1854

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References

1 The Khanega is a species of Wadi, which, from its low level, collects rain water in considerable quantities. When completely full it bursts over the country. The greater part of the water finds its way to the Suleybeea. The Khanega is about sixteen hours south-west of Srik esh Shuiukh, and is a favourite camping-ground of the Dhefyr.

page 405 note 1 A sketch is subjoined of this part of the pile, shewing the staircase and peak, and that part of the wall which exists in the best preservation. To the right of the peak, at d, is the highest part of one of the escaliers of the inclined road, at the north-west side. See Plate I.

page 406 note 1 The blocks were twenty-two inches long, thirteen broad, and four and a half thick; the smaller pieces from two to four inches square: all were well polished. The smaller pieces had remains of copper, bolts still remaining in the holes at back.

page 407 note 1 These pieces are from half an inch to two inches long; the latter are an inch broad, the smaller ones in proportion. All of them are bored through the back.

page 407 note 2 The gold is thin, and may have been used to ornament a dome or wall, the gilt-headed nails being used to fix the plates. On all the metal nails found here traces of gilding were distinct. These have, however, been unfortunately removed, from the rubbing of one against the other; they having got loose in the case in which they were packed. One very good specimen however remains.

page 408 note 1 Plate II.

page 408 note 2 See plan of these chambers, in fig. 3, Plate III.

page 409 note 1 In some places these walls were on a level with the plain; in others some ten feet above it, and resting as usual on sand.

page 409 note 2 In both these trenches, bricks with two and some with three holes through them, were frequent.

page 411 note 1 They are found all over the mounds in the Jezireh and Iraq, particularly at “Manjúr” mound, which is situated in the Dujeyl district, or “Mulatto.”

page 411 note 2 Mr. Loftus discovered at Warka a building, the whole of whose external walls were ornamented with a mosaic formed of these cones. They were laid horizontally, bedded in cement, with their bases outwards; and arranged in a great variety of geometric patterns, forming not only a beautiful, but a most durable mode of decoration.

From the number of fragments discovered at various places, it seems to have been one, of the most usual decorations employed in Lower Babylonia. A drawing, full size, of one of the cones, with an elevation of a wall decorated with them, was published by the Assyrian Excavation Fund in their first Report.

page 411 note 3 These are of all shapes; heart-shaped, oval, circular, square, and some few shaped like a ball.

page 411 note 4 And room at top of f.

page 412 note 1 Some of these bricks seemed to me to have been fashioned from a species of sandstone, or some composition of which sand was an essential ingredient.

page 412 note 2 A species of bivalve is found in considerable quantities among the ruins. It is evidently a sea-shell, and called, I believe, in common conversation, a “carbuncle.” It colour is red outside, and it is covered with jagged points all over the outer surface.

page 413 note 1 These remains were in much better preservation than those at Muqeyer and Abu Sharein.

page 413 note 2 “Cherri” is a corruption of the Arabic word, “Kerri,” i. e. dug, excavated; therefore the same as canal. The Arab tradition is that it was dug by “Saiedeh,” or “Saadeh,” the wife of “Bukhtnasser,” from Hit to Abadan.

page 413 note 3 The general depth of the marsh is three feet, while the soundings along the supposed track of the Cherri give six.

page 413 note 4 This branch is not called the “Cherri Saadeh” by the Arabs.

page 414 note 1 In several of the coffins I observed large cracks; great care had been taken, however, to close them effectually, by a thick layer of bitumen, along their whole length.

page 415 note 1 Might not these remains have been those of warriors or captives taken in battle? Smaller iron rings, but broad, were also in some quantity disposed about the feet, and along the sides of the body, as if they had formerly been the links or parts of a chain connecting the two rings or bangles.

page 415 note 2 In a mound, near the centre of the ruins, I dug up numerous large conch shells, and several smaller ones of a spiral form, all sea-shells.