The plan (fig. 1), taken from Mr Layard's work[1], will shew,
better than a long description, the position of these rooms, and their
relation to the rest of the building--which is believed to date from about
700 B.C. The long passage (No. XLIX) is one of the entrances to the
palace. Passing thence along the narrower passage (No. XLII) the explorers
soon reached a doorway (E), which led them into a large hall (No. XXIX),
whence a second doorway (F) brought them into a chamber (No. XXXVIII). On
the north side of this room were two doorways (G. G), each "formed by two
colossal bas-reliefs of Dagon, the fish-god." "The first doorway," says Mr
Layard, "guarded by the fish-gods, led into two small chambers opening
into each other, and once panelled with bas-reliefs, the greater part of
which had been destroyed. I shall call these chambers 'the chambers of
records,' for, like 'the house of the rolls' or records, which Darius
ordered to be searched for the decree of Cyrus concerning the building of
the Temple of Jerusalem[2], they appear to have contained the decrees of
the Assyrian kings, as well as the archives of the empire."

Mr Layard was led to this conclusion by finding, in these rooms, enormous
quantities of inscribed tablets and cylinders of baked clay. "To a height
of a foot or more from the floor they were entirely filled with them; some
entire, but the greater part broken into many fragments, probably by the
falling in of the upper part of the building.... These documents appear to
be of various kinds. Many are historical records of wars, and distant
expeditions undertaken by the Assyrians; some seem to be royal decrees,
and are stamped with the name of a king, the son of Esarhaddon; others
again ... contain lists of the gods, and probably a register of offerings
made in their temples[3]."

So far Mr Layard. Subsequent researches have shewn that these two small
rooms--they were 27 feet and 23 feet long respectively, with a uniform
breadth of 20 feet--contained the literature as well as the official
documents of Assyria. The tablets have been sorted under the following
heads: History; Law; Science; Magic; Dogma; Legends: and it has been shewn
(1) that there was a special functionary to take charge of them; (2) that
they were arranged in series, with special precautions for keeping the
tablets forming a particular series in their proper sequence; (3) that
there was a general catalogue, and probably a class-catalogue a