He
represents it as having been the largest city in the world. The
journey round it occupied three days. The walls were a hundred feet
high, broad enough for three chariots abreast, and defended by
fifteen hundred towers. The same authority states that the Assyrian
king Ninus was the founder, about 2,200 years before the birth of
Christ.
The whole is now covered with earth, and it is only when the
peasants are ploughing, that fragments of brick or marble are here
and there turned up. Long ranges of mounds, more or less high,
extending over the immeasurable plain on the left bank of the
Tigris, are known to cover the remains of this town.
In the year 1846, the Trustees of the British Museum sent the
erudite antiquarian, Mr. Layard, to undertake the excavations. It
was the first attempt that had ever been made, and was very
successful. {268}
Several excavations were made in the hills near Nebbi Yunus, and
apartments were soon reached whose walls were covered with marble
slabs wrought in relief. These represented kings with crowns and
jewels, deities with large wings, warriors with arms and shields,
the storming of fortifications, triumphal processions, and hunting
parties, etc.
