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ior to an eunuch; and in the distance are soldiers, with lions' skins, dancing to the vibrations of a guitar. The second slab is a continuation of the first. Here men are mounted in war chariots, while others holding the heads of their enemies in their hands are on foot: and a bird, grasping in its claws a human head, soars above. That slab marked 3, and placed against the window hereabouts, was extracted from the centre of the great mound of Nimroud. Here camels, preceded by a woman, are pourtrayed. The slab marked 5 bears the representation of an Assyrian divinity, with four wings, the head surmounted by the conical cap with two horns, and the left hand holding a circlet of beads. A winged figure occurs also on the sixth slab of this compartment, holding a bearded ear of corn in one hand, and a goat in the other. The slabs of the ninth compartment have also representations of winged figures. The fourth, with the eagle head, and holding a fir-cone and a basket. This figure is thus described by Mr. Layard: "A human body, clothed in robes similar to those of the winged men already described, was surmounted by the head of an eagle or of a vulture. The curved beak, of considerable length, was half open, and displayed a narrow-pointed tongue, on which were still the remains of red paint. On the shoulders fell the usual curled and bushy hair of the Assyrian images, and a comb of feathers rose on the top of the head. Two wings sprang from the back, and in either hand was the square vessel and fir-cone. In a kind of girdle were three daggers, the handle of one being in the form of the head of a bull. They may have been of precious metal, but more probably of copper, inlaid with ivory or enamel, as a few days before a copper dagger-handle, precisely similar in form to one of those carried by this figure, hollowed to receive an ornament of some such material, had been discovered in the S.W. ruins, and is now preserved in the British Museum. This effigy, which probably typified by its mythic form the union of certain divine attributes, may perhaps be identified with the god Nisroch, in whose temple Sennacherib was slain by his sons after his return from his unsuccessful expedition against Jerusalem; the word Nisr signifying, in all Semitic languages, 'an eagle.'" The slabs arranged in the tenth compartment are interesting. On the first, two horsemen, whose peaked helmets suggest that they are Assyrians, are charging another hors
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