g and important facts,
and to determine several points which were previously doubtful.

"1. The existence of an outer basement wall of roughly cut stone
blocks, supporting a mud wall, upon which white plaster still remains,
and from which painted bricks have fallen. 2. At the corner of the
palace, and at a considerable distance from the principal chambers, is
an entrance hall, with column bases, precisely as we see them
represented in the sculptures. 3. Above this entrance hall and its
adjoining chambers, there was formerly another story, the first upper
rooms yet discovered in Assyria. This, with its sculptured slabs, has
fallen into the rooms below. 4. The various sculptures here
disinterred are the works of four, if not five, different artists,
whose styles are distinctly visible. It is evident that this portion
of the edifice has been willfully destroyed, the woodwork burned, and
the slabs broken to pieces. The faces of all the principal figures are
slightly injured by blows of the ax."

This highly interesting series of bas-reliefs, which has now been
placed in a lower chamber in the British Museum, consequently
represents the siege and capture of Lachish, as described in the
Second Book of Kings, and in the inscriptions on the human-headed
bulls. Sennacherib himself is seen seated on his throne, and receiving
the submission of the inhabitants of the city, whilst he had sent his
generals to demand the tribute of payment from Hezekiah. The defenders
of the castle walls and the prisoners tortured and crouching at the
conqueror's feet are Jews, and the sculptor has evidently endeavored
to indicate the peculiar physiognomy of the race, and the dress of the
people.

The value of this discovery can scarcely be overrated. Whilst we have
thus the representations of an event recorded in the Old Testament, of
which consequently these bas-reliefs furnish a most interesting and
important illustration, they serve to a certain extent to test the
accuracy of the interpretation of the cuneiform inscriptions, and to
remove any doubt that might still exist as to the identification of
the King who built the palace on the mound of Kouyunjik with the
Sennacherib of Scripture. Had these bas-reliefs been the only remains
dug up from the ruins of Nineveh, the labor of the explorer would have
been amply rewarded, and the sum expended by the nation on the
excavations more than justified. They furnish, together with the
inscriptions whic