Art. V.—Topography of Nineveh, illustrative of the Maps of the chief cities of Assyria; and the general Geography of the country intermediate between the Tigris and the Upper Zab

Felix Jones

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00013460

Art. V.—Topography of Nineveh, illustrative of the Maps of the chief cities of Assyria; and the general Geography of the country intermediate between the Tigris and the Upper Zab

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2011

Felix Jones

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

Within the last decade of years, the museums of France and England have been enriched by numerous monuments of Assyrian art, that clearly show the soil from which they were obtained was peopled by a race who, to its warlike habits, added many of the refinements of civilized life. The researches of Botta and Layard—so far as lapidary tablets are capable of conveying the economy of a nation—hare familiarised us in some measure with the public rites and ceremonies of the Assyrians, as well as given an insight into their more domestic concerns; and the pens of these travellers have further elucidated the subject in a manner of which the praise of the public is guarantee to the ability displayed, while the monuments themselves, as patents of their energy, remain in the capitals of Europe, until, in the course of time, they share in the fate of their Assyrian predecessors. Profoundly indifferent, however, to such an event, our savans are in the mean time labouring to unravel the mystic characters engraved on the records so lately revealed to ua; and such is the progress made, that we may shortly expect to be as cognizant of the deeds of the “stouthearted king and the glory of his high looks,” as we are conversant with the celebrities of Greece or Rome. The only desideratum wanting, it appears, to complete the picture of Assyria, is a faithful sketch of her aspect in desolation, when she is “empty, and void, and waste; when flocks lie down in the midst of her; and when her rivers are opened, and her palace is dissolved.” This we have endeavoured to supply in the three maps of the vestiges of Assyria, made from actual survey of the spot. Topography, however, is a dry subject, and we enter upon it with diffidence and reluctance.

Type: Original Communications
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 15 , January 1854 , pp. 297 - 396

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00013460 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1854

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

^{page 297 note 1} Isaiah x. 12.

^{page 297 note 2} Nahum ii. 6, 10; Zephaniali ii. 14.

^{page 298 note 1} We use these names as the generally recognized appellations of the founders of the Assyrian monarchy. The Targums of Onkelos and Jerusalem supply, however, other readings for some of the proper names found in our version of Genesis x.

^{page 298 note 2} The Hamrín, Kara Husseyn, and Kara Choldt ridges, are curious instances of these gradations from mountain to plain, leaving narrow but extended steppes of very rich land intermediate between them; we shall notice them more in detail in a future paper. The first bounds Mesopotamia to the N.E, the latter terminates in the Sinjar group, dipping below the country west of Arbél, where the Tigris and the Zàb course impetuously over íts depressions. The undulations are left white in Sheet III.

^{page 299 note 1} This name would seem to imply that of the country, not that of the founder of the Assyrian monarchy, if the readings of the Chaldee Targums are to be adopted; and certainly the sense of the passage in Genesis x. is not done violence to, but on the contrary, is maintained by these interpretations.

^{page 299 note 2} Ctesias' fragments would appear to be loose in every respect. Plutarch, Aulus Gellius, Aristotle, and Joseph Scaliger, it would seem, estimate his character for veracity at a very low scale.

^{page 299 note 3} “Nineveh and its Palaces,” in the Illustrated London Library, pp. 83, 94, 97.

^{page 300 note 1} Layard's testimony is conclusive of the exaggeration of the ancient writers. See Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. chap. 2, p. 276; and Niebuhr, in his Lectures, discards altogether the evidence of Ctesias, when considering the historícal value of ancient chronicles.

^{page 301 note 1} See Yàkút, in his M'ajim al Buldán.

^{page 302 note 1} When this was written we understood Layard to mean these positions as forming the angles of a connected line of circumvallation around Nineveh; but we have since had reason to believe we have misinterpreted the sense of his remarks on this head, and that his conjectures on this subject agree with our own in a general view.

^{page 302 note 2} In the opening pages of this paper. The work alluded to (pp. 83, 94, 97) is from the pen of M. Bonomi, and though there is doubtless some good collated information in it, it cannot be generally quoted as a guide for the attainment of Assyrian knowledge.

^{page 303 note 1} More will be said on this hitherto bewildering subject in the detailed notice of Nineveh to elucidate sheet II. of the vestiges of Assyria.

^{page 304 note 1} See Lucian on Sacrifices, 1—4.

^{page 304 note 2} Babel.

^{page 304 note 3} Book II., Chap. I. “She caused high mounds or eminences to be raised wherever she fixed her camp.”

^{page 304 note 4} Evidently a religious edifice; this Cuneiform name, according to Colonel Rawlinson, being that of a god of the period.

^{page 305 note 1} of the Cuneiform tablets.

^{page 306 note 1} He forded it in the autumn, not an easy task, even at this season. At others it is impassable on foot.

^{page 306 note 2} On the Median Wall of Xenophon and position of Opis.

^{page 307 note 1} This term I believe is still to be traced in the country; it is found applied to old water-channels. See my journey in search of the Median Wall and Opis, in Bombay Geographical Transactions. Khálí or Chálí are indifferently used at the present time for the old watercourse so long confounded with the Median Wall of Xenophon, and known more generally as the Sidd-i-Nimrúd or Nimrod's dyke to the modern Arabs.

^{page 307 note 2} “Sogdiau mountains” of Arrian.

^{page 308 note 1} Colonel Rawlinson, we believe, holds this opinion.

^{page 309 note 1} See Arrian's Expedition of Alexander the Great, Book III., chaps. 7 to 15, inclusive.

^{page 311 note 1} Much ingenuity and hjdraulic skill is here evident in the Assyrian people, the canal being, for eight miles, led contrary to the natural course of every stream in the district.

^{page 311 note 2} See also Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, chap. XXVI., pp. 616, 617, and note §.

^{page 313 note 1} See Diodorus Siculua especially.

^{page 313 note 2} Within the last few months other Babylonian ruins have been brought to light that were never before known to Europeans. Our active Vice-Consul at Basrah, Mr. John Taylor, escorted by his Arab friends, visited the most prominent of these, termed Abu Shehreyn. His journals are in the hands of the trustees to the British Museum, and there are not wanting people in every way calculated for such enterprise, who are ready to explore the region as soon as the authorities have settled the question. Let us hope the French are not the first in the field, as at Nineveh and Khorsabad.

^{page 315 note 1} From Nineveh to Nhnrud in round numbers is eighteen miles; thence to Khorsabad about twenty-eight, and back to Nineveh by the road fourteen miles.

^{page 315 note 2} Exemplified in many counties of England alone: Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Nottinghamshire, and others, where the “shire,” as derived from the Saxon “scir,” simply means a division, or separate territory, and the chief town took the name of its original lord, or first possessor. We have the same term in the Persian term “Shehr,” “city,” applied to separate congregations of men: and in the similar Arabic word we can perhaps trace the extended meaning of “renowned,” or “wide-spread,” a favourite title for illustrious cities, as well as personages, of the olden time. We are inclined, indeed, to consider that in the words Nineveh and Ninus we trace the name of Nimrúd; the “m” and “n” in the middle of the names being common enough mutations in every language; while the terminations “eveh” and “us” are referable, perhaps, to Semitic and Greek forms, with which the learned may assimilate the meaning of “house,” or “abode.” Nimrúd is supposed to be a compound name; the latter syllable in the Hebrew being expressive of the title of “rebel,” or “mighty,” in accordance with his character.

^{page 315 note 3} The quotation is here, perhaps, a little distorted, but is equally applicable to Nineveh as to Babylon. Sacred and profane writers agree in distinguishing it by the term “great,” and in a poetical fragment of Diodorus Siculus, Níνοç μɛγáλη is employed to express its character as a city.

^{page 316 note 1} Vestiges of Assyria. Sheet I. “An ichnographie sketch of the remains of ancient Nineveh, with the enceinte of modern Mosul.”

^{page 316 note 2} A Mahomedan doctor of some reputation in the neighbourhood, though we could not ascertain the precise nature of his claims for veneration.

^{page 317 note 1} No. 27 of the map.

^{page 317 note 2} No. 23 of map of Nineveh.

^{page 317 note 3} No. 26 of map of Nineveh.

^{page 318 note 1} Nahum, ii. 8.

^{page 318 note 2} It will suffice, perhaps, to point out the Kódsr channel as the weakest boundary of the district under review. The bulk of the population was here necessary to its defences; and in the angles formed by the Khósr's junction with the Tigris, the most convenient site was found for the capital, whether for trading purposes, or for protection and defence. See also “Topography of Nimrud,” where the subject is further considered.

^{page 318 note 3} No. 12, map of Nineveh.

^{page 318 note 4} No. 24, map of Nineveh.

^{page 319 note 1} No. 23, map of Nineveh.

^{page 319 note 2} Xenophon, in the famous Retreat of the 10,000 Greeks, notices a plinth of polished stone, forming the lower parts of the walls of the Median city which is identical with that before us. He adds, however, it was full of shells, and this statement can be verified by the curious in the present day. The conglomerate is a predominant feature in the excavated ditches, and an artificial concrete in many places forming a facing to the scarped sides to prevent water attritition, is traceable also in many parts.

^{page 320 note 1} Remains still exist.

^{page 320 note 2} See dam in fosse just below the Ayn-al-Demlámajeh. The other outlets appear also to hare had dams and sluices for arresting the rapidity of the current in its descent into the ravine at No. 29; the places they occupied are shown in the map. At No. 23, where the spur has been separated from the range, for the reception of a part of the Khósr waters brought by the canal to No. 24, the obstructions are placed teethwise from either side of the bank to check the Velocity of the torrent in its passage over the spur, before descending into the low recess beyond the cliffs.

^{page 320 note 3} The east bank is the great rampart facing the plain beyond. It varies in height from sixty to eighty feet above the level of the bottom of the ditch at the present day, though roads have led over it for many centuries back. It is formed from the excavated soil of the channel at its base.

^{page 322 note 1} No. 11 of the map.

^{page 323 note 1} In the inscriptions this portion of the stream seems as if represented by Colonel Kawlinson, however, cannot yet decide on the subject; but gives as more general terms for the Tigris, the Cuneiform equivalents and the Hatikkar and Hatiggar of English orthography, the Tiypif of the Greeks, and the Tigris of our own geography.

^{page 324 note 1} With more propriety it should be termed a trapezium.

^{page 324 note 2} The fragments of Ctesias which Diodorus quotes would seem to be loose in every respect.

^{page 324 note 3} About a fourth only of the number computed by those who have considered the metaphorical enumeration followed by Jonah. See Goguet, Origines des Loix, &c, tome 3, quoted by Gibbon. We must, however, compare the prophet's implied census of the inhabitants with his Itinerary, and identify accordingly the whole district included within the four streams, specified in page 3 of the paper accompanying the general map, as comprehended in the prophet's designation of Nineveh.

^{page 325 note 1} Subsequent to the ruin of the city, Koiyunjik would appear to have been used occasisnally as a defensive position in many of the wars which have waged between the Orientals and their western neighbours. Xenophon notices a castle on the site, as also Tacitus, (Annal. xii., 13). In the thirteenth century too, Abulfaraj and Bar-hebraus, the former in Hist. Dynast, p. 404, the latter in his Chronicles, p. 464, mention a “castellura” there.

^{page 325 note 2} This term is the Turkish name at present given to the great mound, and is indifferently written either as or according to the orthography of Mr. Rassam, which, however, may be doubted. As a favorite resort of the shepherds and their flocks, “lambs” may be deemed more strictly the derivative of the modern name, especially as the mound is known by the appellation of Armushfyeh to the Arabs. The term is of doubtful signification, but the root has a latitude of interpretation, and may be applied to “variegated flocks” or “great embankments.” These modern names, as far as we can see, carry, however, no weight with them for the identification of the more ancient names.

^{page 325 note 3} It must be remembered that the Khósr was shut out from its original channel further to the east on the building of the city. The lower portion adjoining the Tigris in its shape, offered however, we presume, a convenient ditch for the separation of Koiyunjik on the east, and hence the canal led to it from the north-eastern angle of the city enclosure.

^{page 326 note 1} Colonel Kawlinson was daily thus employed in a most inclement season: book in hand, sometimes seated in a swamp, sometimes protected only by an umbrella from the torrents coursing down from above, he persevered and succeeded in obtaining copies of all the legible tablets uncovered within the mounds both of Nineveh and Nimrud. It was ludicrous and interesting indeed, to witness the shifts he was occasionally put to to obtain a glimpse of light upon a defaced and uncertain character of the inscriptions. His activity of mind and body in the pursuit of his favourite study in every situation, is certainly deserving of the success which the public and his numerous friends most cordially wish him.

^{page 326 note 2} We insert for the benefit of the curious that Koiyunjik contains about 14,500,000 tons of earth, and its neighbour, Nebbi Yunus, 6,500,000. On the supposition, therefore, of 1000 men being able to excavate and remove 120,000 tons of earth annually, these artificial eminences would require respectively about 120 years and 54 years for their completion by this number of people. In their construction, women as well as men were employed by the despots of the day. This we learn from the inscriptions deciphered by Colonel Rawlinson.

^{page 327 note 1} The Christians deny that Jonah died in Nineveh, but acknowledge that a Christian church occupied the place of the present Mahomedau mosque and tomb, said to have been built over the former on the Mahomedan occupation. See Rich, ii, 32, in a foot note.

^{page 327 note 2} Since this was penned, the Pacha of Mosul has opened the mound by the aid of convicts employed for the purpose. Two splendid bulls, much defaced, and some chambers formed of slabs bearing the Cuneiform legend, were exposed on my last visit in April of this year. The bulls are about nineteen feet high, contiguous to the so-called tomb of the prophet, and if anything, below the foundation of the edifice.

^{page 327 note 3} If Ninus really had a sepulchre in Nineveh, we are disposed to regard this tomb of Nebbi Yunus as the mausoleum honoured with the title of “Busta Nini” by Ovid and by other writers, who, more or less conflicting in the circumstances of his burial, make the whole of Asia Minor, from Tarsus to Babylon, the scene of it. We shall allude to the subject again in the paper on Nimriid, the great pyramid of which being supposed by some to represent the real tomb.

^{page 327 note 4} On the outskirts of Mosul, on the opposite side to Nineveh, we have the recognized grave of Seth, the third son of Adam. The tomb is much revered by both Christians and Mahomedans of the district. Nebbi Allah Shyth, “Seth, the prophet of God,” is the usual name and title uttered in speaking of him; but are we to credit the tale of his burial here, or does the site mark the last resting-place of a pagau personage of a subsequent age and less direct lineage from the original A dam of our race ? Considering the extraordinary monuments of Assyria but lately revealed to us, we might indeed be justified in the expectation of meeting still older records on this soil; for Ninus, in archaic relation to antediluvian Seth, is but as a youngster of the human race. See map, Sheet iii. VOL. XV.

^{page 328 note 1} corruption of Demkm&keh, a term applied to a water oozing drop by drop. It is Turkish.

^{page 329 note 1} Eccleeiasticus xxvii. 3.

^{page 329 note 2} Layard regards the arch as the work of a Greek or Roman age. We think otherwise, from the prevailing practice noticed in Ecclesiasticus, which would, we presume, refer it to a still earlier period.

^{page 329 note 3} Rich, in his “Kurdistan and Nineveh,” deems these emblems expressive of a registered vow in the event of recovery from siekness.—Vol. ii., page 34.

^{page 330 note 1} We infer this from his rough notes and from his fragments, Cuneiform and other carefully preserved relics, though he nowhere directly asserts their existence. His journals are, indeed, only the results of observations, not of reflection, his death preventing his opinions being embodied with the former.

^{page 330 note 2} We shall endeavour to explain this further when considering the position of Nimrud in the paper accompanying its plan.

^{page 330 note 3} Itinerary and inferred census of population from the pages of Jonah.

^{page 331 note 1} The characters represent the name in the Cuneiform writings of Assjria, equivalent to the Hebrew, The Septuagint writes the name Nivtw, NIMUIJ, and the ordinary Greek writings Nivoc, as the form, while in Latin it is denominated Ninus. See Kitto, under Nineveh; and Colonel Rawlinson supplies as the monogram for the city.

^{page 331 note 2} The Kh6sr boundary, as the most accessible point, would require the bulk of the population for its defence. We shall refer again to this subject when con. sideling the position of Nimrud in the next paper.

^{page 331 note 3} These authors place it on the Euphrates, an egregious but common enough error, as we have before pointed out.

^{page 331 note 4} Nimrud is evidently denned as the Nineveh of these geographers, and at the period they wrote it doubtless held the title, according to Eastern usage, after the destruction of the capital. Strabo's identifying the region as Calachene is conclusive, however, we think, of Nimrúd's not holding the original title of Nineveh, for it has been recognised by Colonel Rawlinson as the Kalkhu of the Cuneiform writings, and the Calah of Genesis x. As such, it was doubtless the principal city of Calachene, the name of the district in Strabo's time, and, fiom being the last inhabited, known also as the representative of the original Atur or Nineveh, its contemporary city from the first foundation of the monarchy there.

^{page 331 note 5} If Aristotle, Plutarch, Aulus Gellius, and Joseph Scaliger are correct in their estimate of the character and writings of Ctesias, his fragments should cease to be quoted as authority for anything. We believe the statements of the latter geographers, Strabo and Ptolemy, to apply exclusively to Nimrud while it held rank as the capital of a later age. We shall consider the subject again in the description of Nimrúd.

^{page 332 note 1} Mespila, or Mɛς-πλατ, “central gates,” &e., named, we presume, by the Greeks from being midway between the Persian Gulf, the Euxine, the Mediterranean, and the Caspian Seas. The term, after Alexander's conquest, soon became converted into Muspil and Musvil, to be further corrupted into the Arabicised Mosul, after the Mahomedan conquest. signifies “joining or connecting,” and is equally applicable to a spot from whence emanated the diverging caravan routes that led to Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Northern Asia Minor, in early times as in the present day, when we see it as the central mart which connects the traders of the surrounding countries in one common pursuit.

^{page 332 note 2} In the same way as London and its environs are included under tho same general term of London, when not necessary to particularize a single locality; but if we speak of the city of London, the words must be held as significative of the city's limits alone.

^{page 332 note 3} Many instances of this may be quoted; Seleucia retained the name Babylon long after the original Babylon was destroyed, and Baghdad, even at the present lime, is named sometimes after the original Babel; at least, the episcopal chair of the Bishops of Babylon, after Seleueia was ruined, took root in Baghdad, and still stands, though in a tottering and disreputable state, as the seat of a bishop bearing the title of Babylon. Seleueia, too, gave its name to other places after it was abandoned, and of Eski Baghdads, or “Old Baghdads,” we have a goodly assortment, though in these cases the name of Baghdad has returned to the original bite; the “Old Baghdads” being ruins of more modern positions, founded by caprice, or necessity, and again deserted for the original city. The modern Basreh too stands on the site of Abileh, which name is lost and replaced by that of the city of Sindbad, now seen in ruins five miles west of the modern Basreh, bearing with the ignorant the name of Jama AH only, that of part of a mosque, the single pile left erect there.

^{page 333 note 1} Instead of four hundred and eighty stadia, the circuit of the walls is but onedghth, or sixty stadia.

^{page 333 note 2} Compare Book, chap, i., 101, with page 121 of the same book and chapter, in the English tranlation of Booth.

^{page 333 note 3} With respect to it we quote the apt words of Sir Anthony Shirley, in Purchas, p. 1387 of the 2nd vol. After speaking of Nineveh, he adds: “within one English mile of it is a place called Mosul, a small thing, rather to be a witnesse of the other's mightinesse and God's judgement, than of any fashion of magnificence in itselfe.”

^{page 334 note 1} Diodorus Siculus, book ii., chap. 2, makes the Euphrates the destroyer of the city. This is a confusion of names which we have endeavoured to point out as till common enough in the country. After great reflection in connection with the surface levels of the locality, we, however, conclude the Khósr, and not the Tigris, to have been chiefly instrumental in its ruin, the more so as the walls contiguous to tlie Tigris are in all respects, as regards the admission of the river within them, as perfect as ever they were. There is indeed, no trace of a rupture ou the side of the Tigris which can be attributed to the effects of the stream.

^{page 335 note 1} Sheet 1st of the Vestiges of Asbyria.

^{page 336 note 1} Book III.

^{page 337 note 1} Layard notices of one of his early discoveries that it surpasses those of Khorsabád—See “Nineveh and its Remains,” Vol. I., chap, ii., p. 41; and again in page 63 he adds of others, “although the relief was lower yet the outline was, perhaps, more careful and true than those of Khorsabad,” and this description is apparently characteristic of the earliest palatial sculptures of Nimrud: see page 64.

^{page 337 note 2} Some of these bear only a few letters or a name for an inscription.

^{page 338 note 1} Verses 26 and 27. “Let us create man in our own image and after our likeness.” The artists of every age have, perhaps, put a too literal interpretation on the text.

^{page 338 note 2} Layard's Nineveh, Vol. II., p. 202.

^{page 338 note 3} We have the figure on a cylinder bearing the Phoenician inscription, and see a similar effigy on the wall of a mummy pit in Egypt, described under the head of “Burial,” in the Biblical Cyclopaedia of Kitto. It also abounds on the cylinders of Babylonia and Assyria in connection with symbols of Sabseism, the sacred tree and bull of Assyria; these cylinders, however, we regard as of an era far later than others on which the figure of Ormuzd is not seen.

^{page 339 note 1} Herodotus, in Clio, Art. CXXXI.

^{page 339 note 2} With our extended ideas at the present day, a single eye invested with a halo of glory, relict as it is of pagan ages, serves to typify the all-seeing but invisible origin of nature.

^{page 339 note 3} In the East, there is a vast number of miserable edifices boasting the title of Christian churches, whose exterior aspects are the least offensive parts about them; for within they are full of unseemly pictures executed in the very lowest style of painting, for art we cannot call it. Curzon, in his “Monasteries of the Levant,” gives a ludicrous account of some of these daubs, which disgrace human nature, however low the intellect may be; and on this soil from whence so many noble monuments have been exhumed, the Christian traveller has to deplore the low standard of the Christian mind, which, in the present day, can reverence effigies of holy personages compared with which the idols of the Assyrians are singularly superior, both in ideal expression and human design.

^{page 340 note 1} Whether these horned human bulls, lions, &c, received in Assyria, at any time, divine honours or not, is a subject involved in some obscurity; on cylinders fiom Assyria and Babylonia, the bull is often an attendant, or, indeed, made the seat or throne of Jehovah. In later times, when the veil had been raised which obscured the baseness of human reason, these monsters may have been degraded to a subordinate place in the temples, preparatory to their exclusion altogether. That they were deified in Egypt, and countries bordering on the Mediterranean, there can be no doubt, from numerous scriptural notices of the worship; and that their frontal decorations served to typify sovereignty and power, if not divinity, in the personages who adopted them, we have full warrant of from the pages of Daniel and the coins of the Macedonian period. Alexander the Great is always thus decorated and, to the present day, among Orientals, is scarcely known by any other title than Zu'l Kurnein, “the two-horned” Majesty.

^{page 341 note 1} Nineveh and its Remains, Vol. ii., p. 246.

^{page 341 note 2} Nineveh and its Remains, Vol. ii., p. 225.

^{page 341 note 3} Genesis x. 11. The of the Jews, and Colonel Rawlinson recognises the cognate form of Kalkhu in the Cuneiform inscriptions.

^{page 342 note 1} It is not at all improbable but that Ptolemy's position has no reference whatever to Nimrúd, but to the Nineveh of our map, opposite to the modem Mósul.

^{page 342 note 2} This is referred to in the Cuneiform inscription by the characters Negúb is a modern Arab name, literally ‘a hole” or “perforation.”

^{page 342 note 3} Persian compound, the name of an underground tunnel for conducting a stream to lower grounds. where the intermediate land is of a higher elevation.

^{page 342 note 4} See also general paper on this head, where the work is deemed one of a religious design.

^{page 343 note 1} Fluid pressure on the inferior or southern curves, perhaps assisted by earthquakes.

^{page 343 note 2} “The prowler's way,” an expressive metonism common to the Arabs.

^{page 343 note 3} “Sound,” “the rambler.” It is also called occasionally the “Sakhr Nimrud,” or “Nimrtid's rocks.”

^{page 343 note 4} The quaint old Tavernier describes the rapid here with a fall of twenty feet; and in our English translation of his voyages it is still further improved ui>on by the rendering of twenty fathoms. See his Voyages.

^{page 344 note 1} We had not the means of crossing the river with our instruments to prove what is advanced, nor would time admit of the delay in the construction of rafts.

^{page 344 note 2} The name of a high mount on the summit of a ridge, crossing the plain between the Lower and Upper Záb.

^{page 344 note 3} This will be better seen on Sheet III.

^{page 345 note 1} Deráwísh: this name has been thought by many a Mahomedan corruption of Darius or Dáráyúsh. It is not unlikely, considering that Dárá or Darius is traditionally invested with the tales and works of the neighbourhood as well as his great prototype Nimrúd. Both names, indeed, may have a patent signification, though used as mere meaningless epithets in the mouths of ignorant wanderers of the present day; for, perhaps, they are the only traces left in the minds of men of the two powerful dynasties in which Nimrud flourished; in the latter as the chief, in the former as a secondary city.

^{page 346 note 1} Sheet II. of the Vestiges of Assyria.

^{page 346 note 2} No. 6 of the plan.

^{page 346 note 3} No. 6 of the plan.

^{page 346 note 4} Refer to the general plan for this artificial pile. Its distance would not admit of including it in the large scale of Sheet II.

^{page 346 note 5} Marked f on the plan.

^{page 347 note 1} Marked C on the plan.

^{page 347 note 2} Rich calls it Karndash ravine. We could get no fixed name for it, it having as many aliases as a police protégé in England.

^{page 348 note 1} See description of the Great Pyramid.

^{page 348 note 2} Deep ravines separate the apartments on the west and south face of the enclosure. The torrents of centuries, coursing from the summit of the mounds to the plain, have in a great measure denned their extent.

^{page 349 note 1} These elevations may be a little in error, from the causes noted in the previous paper. Rich made it 144½ feet, but he had not instruments with him for any accurate measurements. Bich's “Kurdistan and Nineveh,” vol. II., chap, xviii., p. 132.

^{page 349 note 2} Were Ninus entombed in Nineveh at all, we should perhaps seek to identify the site of his mausoleum with that venerated at present as the last resting-place of the prophet Jonah, from the simple fact of the first Christian fathers not recognizing the grave as that of the missionary of Nineveh. Yet doubtless a grave existed there, and we may infer a more than common grave, from the fixed and unswerving bigotry of all Orientals in receiving, in this respect, what has traditionally descended from age to age; nor is it likely that early Mahomedans, keen in inquiry on matters of this nature, and doubly prejudiced, as they were, against Christian edifices, would blindly accept a Christian chapel, perhaps decorated with the hated emblems of their faith, as the sepulchre of Jonah, unless a tomb invested with necrological honours from a remote period rendered the spot, in their eyes, worthy of memorial and preservation, Rich, who took great interest in such subjects, spent much time in inquiry during a residence in the neighbourhood, and he states that the Christians distinctly deny Jonah's burial on this spot (Kurdistan and Nineveh, Vol. II., chap, xiii., p. 32); and in this respect most authors agree with them, placing his tomb at Gath-hepher and Tyre in Palestine, the pseudo-Epiphanius even allotting a portion of the cemetery of Cenezceus to the reception of the prophet's body.—See“De Vitis Proph.” and the Paschal Chron., quoted by Kitto. The Christians had, however, a Bort of hermitage on the site of the present tomb. This hermitage, dedicated only to Jonah, in Christian veneration for his mission to Nineveh, may have been erected near the principal feature of the Necropolis, generally, from the sanctity attached to the dead, the last memorial of a city. Its position on this might be regarded in keeping with the character of an edifice raised by austere piety and enthusiasm; and, on the Mahomedan invasion, a pardonable deceit connecting the chapel and the grave, while it preserved both from ruin, may have originated and perpetuated an error which renders the site a “noli me tangere” position to the spade of the antiquarian. Could we convince the ‘Ulema of such an error, and point out the prophet's grave to them in Palestine, Islam credulity, partaking more of superstition than respect, might deem the work a charitable one which separated the corrupt relics of their race from the remains of a heathen and proscribed people; a little money would then put us in possession of the mysterious contents of the mound. Since the above was written we heard of operations having been commenced by the Turks themselves, and on our way to England examined some colossal specimens of Assyrian sculpture on a_level with the foundations_of the supposed tomb of the prophet.

^{page 351 note 1} About eighty-three feet above the level of the plain. I am led to believe these eminences were somehow connected with the canal from the Záb. Perhaps the water was raised by machines erected here for the supply of the western palaces, OIJ the great dam being ruptured by the flood.

^{page 351 note 2} See Yakút, in M'ajim al Buldáu; and Abulfeda, under the head of

^{page 355 note 1} Mrs, Rasaam.

^{page 355 note 2} Messrs. Fresnel and Oppect.

^{page 359 note 1}

^{page 362 note 1} He is armed with a “cat o'three tails;” an instrument squared upon to suit modern ideas for the maintenance of discipline.

^{page 363 note 1} None can look upon the daubs hung up in the monastery of Mar Jorjiz, or in other similar edifices, without painful evidence of the low standard of the Christian mind here.

^{page 363 note 2} An Arabicised Persian word from “to bestow”? It is in common use all over Egypt, Syria, and other parts of Asia Minor, where it implies “largesse.”

^{page 364 note 1} Upwards of five centuries.

^{page 364 note 2} Turkish, signifying “chief bastion;”

^{page 364 note 3} Arabic.

^{page 365 note 1} Báb-es-sinjár.

^{page 365 note 2} Turkish.

^{page 365 note 3} Compound Arabic and Turkish.

^{page 365 note 4} It is known also as the Jámá-al-ahhmar, or “red mosque,” though its snowwhite appearance belies its name.

^{page 365 note 5} Arabic.

^{page 366 note 1} Turkish.

^{page 366 note 2}

^{page 366 note 3} Turkish.

^{page 366 note 4} Turkish.

^{page 366 note 5} Persian?

^{page 367 note 1} “Mound,” Turkish.

^{page 368 note 1} Arabic.

^{page 368 note 2} Turkish.

^{page 368 note 3} These are of the same tribe as the great family of the name owning the territory on both sides of the Euphrates, between Fehigia and Hít. Blood feuds have caused them to separate.

^{page 369 note 1} “The prophet Elias.”