The Press. — London, England, 1854-09-23 00:00:00

SEPTEMBER 23, 1854. ASSYRIAN RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES. THE following interesting account of Assyrian re searches and discoveries is contained in the last annual report of the Royal Asiatic Society, and is a summary of the progress in this department of archreological research made by Colonel Raw- LLISOn " The most recent, as well as the most important, discovery, in an historical and geographical point of view, is that of another obelisk, in the south-east corner of the great mound of Nimrod, and erected by Shamasphul, the son of Shalamhara, or Shalam chara, who raised the similar and well-known obelisk in the British Museum. " This obelisk is described as being six feet nine inches in height, and nine feet square. It is of very fine limestone, and is rounded at the top. On one side a king is boldly represented within an arched frame,' having the Assyrian symbols over the head, and the cross, like that of Malta, on his breast. The obelisk is of more irregular and uncouth shape than the one we have. There is an inscription on the other three sides of this obelisk, casts of which have been sent to Colonel Rawlinson, at Bagdad. They are in the Hieratic Assyrian character, of which a specimen exists in London upon Lord Aberdeen's black stone; but the alphabet varies in some points from the ordinary Assyrian character, and it required some study before it could be read with fluency. The difference, however, is not greater, perhaps, than that which exists between some of the more ornate forms of what we call Old English, or black letter, and the ordinary type of our printed books. The date of the obelisk is about the beginning of the eighth century B.C. The inscription is divided into four columns, and contains 225 lines. It begins with the usual invocations to the gods of Assyria, and then goes on to record, in the following words, a domestic revolution begun by his elder brother— ' Ashur-dan-pal raised a revolt against his father, Shalamhar. As my elder brother he was guardian of the whole country (?), but he threw it into revolt and prepared for battle. The men of Upper and Lower Assyria he joined with him, and he appointed leaders to command the cities and to lead the inha bitants to battle to fight for him.' Then follows a list of twenty-seven cities, most of which are obscure, but the concluding names are well known. The in scription proceeds—' These twenty-seven strong places revolted against Shalamhar, my father, and adhered to Ashur-dan-pal. By the assistance of the great gods I reduced them all under my yoke.' " Then follow the details of the King's wars. In his first year he invades the frontiers of Nahiri (Naharaina), and fixes the limits of Assyria Proper. In his second year he sends his general, Mulil Ashur, against Nahiri, and this chief prosecutes his expedi• tion as far as the sea of the setting sun (either the Euxine or the Mediterranean). His chief antagonist is KhuNsina, son of Mikdiana, and in this campaign many cities are taken, enemies slain, and plunder carried off. In the third year the King crosses the Zab, and passes through Isibar to Nahiri ; receives the tribute of Dadiya and others. On this passage the colonel remarks, ' I sin now of opinion that Bartsu cannot be Persia. It is evidently a part of Armenia, being joined, both here and on the old obelisk, with Minni or Ararat.' The inscription then details the tribute exacted, relates the ravages and plunder of Milida (?), and describes the campaign in this mountainous country. The triumphant King proceeds onwards to Zirruppunda, and receives the tribute of several kings, whose names are doubtful. The campaign in Zirruppunda is described in detail. A King named Perishat is carried into slavery, and the usual plunder follows. The conqueror receives the tribute of the city of Isihara, and there erects a stell, on which he inscribes the laws and ordinances of Asshur, and the feats of arms achieved by his soldiers in the conquest of Nahiri; he marches on t 3 Mata (Media), and describes the campaign in that quarter. The chief city is named Nabit. He next attacks Shirtsuarta, chief of Arazias, and details his conquest, and the submission, tribute, &c., of his opponent. Then follows a list of tributaries who made their submission, containing twenty-six names of chiefs, and their cities, and they are all more or less connected with Scutira (?) and Artaziari, King of Nahiri. These names are all new, and many of them difficult to read, but they will be useful in etymology. The royal zecord then gives a list of the tribute raised, and says that, by the grace of the gods, the lung imposes the yoke of Assyria upon all the countries which extended from the mountain district of Isiba, as far t 0..9 the sea of the setting sun, that is, over the whole of Asia Minor and the Taurus range. The annals then go on as follows In my fourth year, in the month of Si (?), on the 15th day, I set out , for the country of Babylonia. I crossed the Lab ; on the skirts of the mountains I killed three wild bulls. I ravaged the country of Epiteh, and captured the temple of the city on the river Turnat,' THE PRESS. which Colonel Rawlinson thinks is the Upper Nahrwan. " ' The fear of my gods, Asshur and the Sun, fell upon the people of the country, and they submitted to my power. The men of the country I defeated, and I gave over their property and their gods to my own people. I crossed the Turnab by a bridge (or by fording). The city of Tikne, and two hundred towns in the vicinity, I destroyed, and overthrew, and burnt with fire. I ravaged the country of Yal►roman, and attacked the city of Dihhina. The fear of Asshur fell upon the people, and they submitted.' " More details follow, all in the same style, till the King fairly enters Akkidim. " Then,' he adds, the people feared from the wrath of my victorious troops, and from the power of my army, whose conquests were not to be arrested, and they betook themselves to the city of —, which was their capital city, and situated on the river Surabbi, the waters of which were impassable to an army, and around which were 447 dependent towns. This city I took by assault, and I slew 18,000 of the garrison. Their blood ran like the waters of the rivers which surrounded their city : 3,000 of the in habitants I took alive. The wealth or arms of the garrison, plentiful as drops of rain, I gave over to my troops ; the city I destroyed and overthrew, and burned with fire. The Mersdach . . . betook him self to his army. He collected the Chaldeans, the Elamites, the Mimri, and the Arameans—forces in numerable—and came to meet me in battle. On the river Dab, below the city of (as above), I fought with his army and their auxiliaries, and defeated them; 5,000 of the fighting men I slew; 2,000 1 took alive, 1,000 chariots, 2,000 tents, the royal pavi lion and standard, and the whole camp I captured.' And so the inscription ends abruptly. After giving the above professedly hasty sketch of the annals of Shamasphul, Colonel Rawlinson notices a few points of the geography of Assyria at that early period; the rivers Surab and Dab he believes to be the Sure and Zab of the Arabs, the left branch of the Euphrates, which bifurcated at Babylon. He had formerly sup posed the Surab to be the Kukha; but he believes that Shamasphul could not have gone so far without much more fighting than is narrated in the annals. He also remarks on Akkadim, applying here, as on the older obelisk, to Babylonia, so far north as the Assyrian frontier, whereas, in after times the name was restricted to the lower country. The colonel states that he has been down the river to Bassorah, whence he has shipped off several cases to the British Museum and Crystal Palace by the Acbar steam frigate, which was sent up from Bombay for that purpose, so that we may expect these valuable relics in a few months. " The excavations of Mr. Taylor atiUmgheir have satisfactorily proved the architectural plan of the Babylonian and Chaldean temples, showing that they were built stage upon stage, with a single chamber at the summit as the adytum—i►► fact, in precise ac• cordance with the description gi'.en of the Temple of Jupiter Belus, by Herodotus, 1181. Five cylinders, covered with writing, have also resulted from Mr. Taylor's researches ; and a great number of bricks, with names of Kings not found on the monuments previously discovered. From these relics Colonel Rawlinson has sent home lists of names, some of them being of monarchs who must have reigned over the plains of Mesopotamia before the establishment of the Assyrian empire, and others of governors of provinces of the country, under the authority of the supreme monarch. The chronology of Assyria has received a valuable accession by the dis covery of a record of one of the early Kings, whose name is read Tiglath-Pileser, like that of the later King of Assyria known to the Hebrews, Tiglath-Pileser the First, was shown to have flou rished 418 years before the reign of Sennacherib, by a passage in an inscription which had peen trans lated by Dr. Hincks, to whom Mr. Layard communi cated a copy. The same learned scholar subse quently found a cylinder of Tiglath-Pileser in the British Museum, recording the construction of a temple at a !preceding date, which he satisfactorily proved to correspond either with 1750 or 1840 B.C. This discovery he published in the month of July ; and it is gratifying to be enabled to state that Colonel Rawlinson fully confirms this discovery, having since found a duplicate cylinder in a more perfect condi tion, which shows that the earlier date—or 1840 B.C.—is the correct one. The colonel's letter which communicated this was read at a meeting of the 4th of March last. From letters more recently re ceived from that gentleman we learn that he has read the name of Semiramis on a statue of the god Nebo, dug up from the ruins of the Palace of Nim rod. Semiramis appears, in a legend upon the statue, to have been really the wife of Pul, King of Assyria, the same as is mentioned in the Book of Kings, the contemporary of Menahem, King of Israel. This would place Semiramis 150 years before Nebuchad nezzar, which will curiously confirm the tradition recorded by Herodotus, that this Queen preceded Nitocris by five generations, equal to 150 years. It is observed by the colonel ► that the works which Herodotus attributes to Nitocris were certainly erected by Nebuchadnezzar, as is duly attested by Berossus, and recorded in the Babylonian Cunei form Annals; ' and he conjectures accordingly that Nitocris was the wife of Nebuchadnezzar. 903 THE CAMP AT BOULOGNE. BOULOGNE, SEPT. 21.—The Emperor is expected back to-day, but his movements depend so entirely upon himself that there is no absolute certainty of his return. In the same way, the postponed ma noeuvres at Escomilles, it is now confidently stated, will take place on the 25th, but whether they do or not, has, probably, not yet been finally determined. It excites some surprise in the army that, being under the personal command of the Emperor, who has come to Boulogne for the purpose, nearly a month should have passed away without more than one grand tieldday having occurred. Even then only a portion of the troops were out, and the inspections and parade views which have taken place are not of a character to count for much with so large a body of men regularly encamped for training and exercise. At Chobham our troops were much more knocked about, and, though to set the French army of the North in motion is a very different thing from turning out upon an English common some 8,(X)0 or 0,000 soldiers, still it may fairly seem strange that more has not been done. But perhaps the Emperor is intent upon other objects with this magnificent army. One cannot go into a large café militaire without hearing the words Cronstadt, Sebas topol, or Bomarsund constantly repeated. In deed, when the Prince was over here these words were the only common vocabulary between the Life Guardsmen he brought with him and the French soldiers who hastened to show them hospitality. In every other respect they were completely unintel ligible to each other, but when they quaffed bumpers of punch to the name of one of the Russian fortresses there was no misunderstanding as to what was meant. Some, indeed, confidently believe that this army of the North is in reality destined for the Rhine. It is not surprising that the policy of Prussia should sug gest such views, but time alone can develop with certainty the true character of the work which the Emperor has manifestly cut out for his troops. Whatever may be in contemplation for it, the French army of the North is in excellent campaigning trim, and will,when tried, give abundant proofs of its efficiency. In some important respects it scarcely attains to our standard of what is requisite for the training and equipment of soldiers; in others we are certainly surpassed by it ; but, those sources of comparison apart, it is a splendid force, capable of doing any. thing and going anywhere—except, of course, to invade England. Yesterday General Morin inspected four batteries of field artillery about three miles from Boulogne on the Paris road. They defiled past him at the close of the inspection with admirable precision, and appeared to be in excellent working order. There seems to be only one ammunition-waggon attached to each gun, whereas we have, besides that, two extra to each battery, and it is well understood, as an important point in practice, that our artillery carries a considerably larger supply of ammunition than any other in the field. As to horses, ours have a great advantage in size and strength, but are probably not so hardy or steady in service. In campaigning the f3rage of horses is frequently attended with immense difficulties, and it is then that the powers of endurance which those of the French cavalry and artillery appear to possess would be most advan tageously brought out. Some of them are too old and ought to be got rid of. THERE is a touching instance of filial devotion in an extract quoted by Saint Marc Girardin in the Journal des Debats, while recording the death of a Paris celebrity, Madame la Contesse de Ste. Aulaire, at the age of 100 years. That illustrious lady during the revolutionary terrors supported her father by debarring herself of almost the necessities of life, during his residence at a Maison de Sante, to whioh he had been permitted with others to retire, paying heavily for a prolongation of the day of doom. This arrangement, it appears, was publicly accepted by the authorities for all classes of " suspects " who had the means. The ordinary amusements of the day were permitted, and every grade of society, from an actress up to a duchess, was to be found within the walls of the hospital. THE announcement of the expected return of the Empress of Austria to Vienna for her Reconcilement is confirmed : the emperor's satisfaction is so de cidedly expressed, that it is believed a further poli tical amnesty will be granted to the Italian refugees. Tho popularity of the Empress from her gentle and simple manners is naturally increased by this account of her health. • hi