judices of the
Mahometans against the possible disturbance of their dead, and against
the violation by infidel hands of the supposed tomb of Jonah, should
hereafter be dispelled, and excavations be freely allowed in the Nebbi
Yunus mound, we may look to obtain very precious relics of Assyrian art
from the palace of Esar-haddon, now lying buried beneath the village or
the tombs which share between them this most important site.

Of Esar-haddon's Babylonian palace nothing is at present known, beyond
the mere fact of its existence; but if the mounds at Hillah should ever
be thoroughly explored, we may expect to recover at least its
ground-plan, if not its sculptures and other ornaments. The Sherif Khan
palace has been examined pretty completely. It was very much inferior to
the ordinary palatial edifices of the Assyrians, being in fact only a
house which Esar-haddon built as a dwelling for his eldest son during
his own lifetime. Like the more imposing buildings of this king, it was
probably unfinished at his decease. At any rate its remains add nothing
to our knowledge of the state of art in Esar-haddon's time, or to our
estimate of that monarch's genius as a builder.

After a reign of thirteen years, Esar-haddon, "king of Assyria, Babylon,
Egypt, Meroe, and Ethiopia," as he styles himself in his later
inscriptions, died, leaving his crown to his eldest son,
Asshur-bani-pal, whom he had already associated in the government.
Asshur-bani-pal ascended the throne in B.C. 668, or very early in B.C.
667; and his first act seems to have been to appoint as viceroy of
Babylon his younger brother Saul-Mugina, who appears as Sam-mughes in
Polyhistor, and as Saosduchinus in the Canon of Ptolemy.

The first war in which Asshur-bani-pal engaged was most probably with
Egypt. Late in the reign of Esar-haddon, Tirhakah (as already stated
619) had descended from the upper country, had recovered Thebes,
Memphis, and most of the other Egyptian cities, and expelled from them
the princes and governors appointed by Esar-haddon upon his conquest.
Asshur-bani-pal, shortly after his accession, collected his forces, and
marched through Syria into Egypt, where he defeated the army sent
against him by Tirhakah in a great battle near the city of Kar-banit.
Tirhakah, who was at Memphis, hearing of the disaster that had befallen
his army, abandoned Lower Egypt, and sailed up the Nile to Thebes,
whither the forces of Asshur-bani-pal followed him; but th