t Accounts.=--Until about forty years ago we knew almost
nothing of the Assyrians--only a legend recounted by the Greek
Diodorus Siculus. Ninus, according to the story, had founded Nineveh
and conquered all Asia Minor; his wife, Semiramis, daughter of a
goddess, had subjected Egypt, after which she was changed into the
form of a dove. Incapable kings had succeeded this royal pair for the
space of 1,300 years; the last, Sardanapalus, besieged in his capital,
was burnt with his wives. This romance has not a word of truth in it.

=Modern Discoveries.=--In 1843, Botta, the French consul at Mossoul,
discovered under a hillock near the Tigris, at Khorsabad, the palace
of an Assyrian king. Here for the first time one could view the
productions of Assyrian art; the winged bulls cut in stone, placed at
the gate of the palace were found intact and removed to the Louvre
Museum in Paris. The excavations of Botta drew the attention of
Europe, so that many expeditions were sent out, especially by the
English; Place and Layard investigated other mounds and discovered
other palaces. These ruins had been well preserved, protected by the
dryness of the climate and by a covering of earth. They found walls
adorned with bas-reliefs and paintings; statues and inscriptions were
discovered in great number. It was now possible to study on the ground
the plan of the structures and to publish reproductions of the
monuments and inscriptions.

The palace first discovered, that of Khorsabad, had been built by King
Sargon at Nineveh, the site of the capital of the Assyrian kings. The
city was built on several eminences, and was encircled by a wall 25
to 30 miles[18] in length, in the form of a quadrilateral. The wall
was composed of bricks on the exterior and of earth within. The
dwellings of the city have disappeared leaving no traces, but we have
recovered many palaces constructed by various kings of Assyria.
Nineveh remained the residence of the kings down to the time that the
Assyrian empire was destroyed by the Medes and Chaldeans.

=Inscriptions on the Bricks.=--In these inscriptions every character
is formed of a combination of signs shaped like an arrow or wedge, and
this is the reason that this style of writing is termed cuneiform
(Latin _cuneus_ and _forma_). To trace these signs the writer used a
stylus with a triangular point; he pressed it into a tablet of soft
clay which was afterwards baked to harden it and to make the
impression pe