Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon

CHAPTER XII.

ARBAN.—OUR ENCAMPMENT.—SUTTUM AND MOHAMMED EMIN.—WINGED BULLS DISCOVERED.—EXCAVATIONS COMMENCED.—THEIR RESULTS.—DISCOVERY OF SMALL OBJECTS—OF SECOND PAIR OF WINGED BULLS—OF LION—OF CHINESE BOTTLE—OF VASE—OF EGYPTIAN SCARABS—OF TOMBS.—THE SCENE OF THE CAPTIVITY.

On the morning after our arrival in front of the encampment of Sheikh Mohammed Emin, we crossed the Khabour on a small raft, and pitched our tents on its right, or northern, bank. I found the ruins to consist of a large artificial mound of irregular shape, washed, and indeed partly carried away by the river, which was gradually undermining the perpendicular cliff left by the falling earth. The Jebours were encamped to the west of it. I chose for our tents a recess, like an amphitheatre, facing the stream. We were thus surrounded and protected on all sides. Behind us and to the east rose the mound, and to the west were the family and dependents of Mohammed Emin. In the Desert, beyond the ruins, were scattered far and wide the tents of the Jebours, and of several Arab tribes who had placed themselves under their protection; the Sherabeen, wandering keepers of herds of buffaloes; the Buggara, driven by the incursions of the Aneyza from their pasture grounds at Ras-al-Ain (the source of the Khabour); and some families of the Jays, a large clan residing in the district of Orfa, whose sheikh having quarrelled with his brother chiefs had now joined Mohammed Emin. From the top of the mound the eye ranged over a level country bright with flowers, and spotted with black tents, and innumerable flocks of sheep and camels. During our stay at Arban the color of these great plains was undergoing a continual change. After being for some days of a golden yellow, a new family of flowers would spring up, and it would turn almost in a night to a bright scarlet, which would again as suddenly give way to the deepest blue. Then the meadows would be mottled with various hues, or would put on the emerald green of the most luxuriant of pastures. The glowing descriptions I had so frequently received from the Bedouins of the beauty and fertility of the banks of the Khabour were more than realised.

In the extreme distance, to the east of us, rose a solitary conical elevation, called by the Arabs, Koukab. In front, to the south, was the beautiful hill of the Sinjar, ever varying in color and in outline as the declining sun left fresh shadows on its furrowed sides. Behind us, and not far distant, was the low, wooded range of Abd-ul-Azeez. Artificial mounds, smaller in size than Arban, rose here and there above the thin belt of trees and shrubs skirting the river bank.

I had brought with me a tent large enough to hold full two hundred persons, and intended as a “museef,” or place of reception, always open to the wayfarer and the Arab visitor; for the first duty of a traveller wishing to mix with true Bedouins, and to gain an influence over them, is the exercise of hospitality. This great pavilion was pitched in the centre of my encampment, with its entrance facing the river. To the right were the tents of the Cawass and servants; one fitted up expressly for the Doctor to receive patients, of whom there was no lack at all times, and the black Arab tent of Rathaiyah, who would not mix with the Jebours. To the left were those of my fellow travellers, and about two hundred yards beyond, near the excavations, my own private tent, to which I retired during the day, when wishing to be undisturbed, and to which the Arabs were not admitted. In it, also, we usually breakfasted and dined, except when there were any Arab guests of distinction with whom it was necessary to eat bread. In front of our encampment, and between it and the river, was a small lawn, on which were picketed our horses. Suttum and Mohammed Emin usually eat with us, and soon became perfectly reconciled to knives and forks, and the other restraints of civilised life. Suttum’s tact and intelligence were indeed remarkable. Nothing escaped his hawk-like eye. A few hours had enabled him to form a correct estimate of the character of each one of the party, and he had detected peculiarities which might have escaped the notice of the most observant European. The most polished Turk would have been far less at home in the society of ladies, and during the whole of our journey he never committed a breach of manners, only acquired after a few hours’ residence with us. As a companion he was delightful,—full of anecdote, of unclouded spirits, acquainted with the history of every Bedouin tribe, their politics and their wars, and intimate with every part of the Desert, its productions and its inhabitants. Many happy hours I spent with him, seated, after the sun went down, on a mound overlooking the great plain and the winding river, listening to the rich flow of his graceful Bedouin dialect, to his eloquent stories of Arab life, and to his animated descriptions of forays, wars, and single combats.

Mohammed Emin, the Sheikh of the Jebours, was a good-natured portly Arab, in intelligence inferior to Suttum, and wanting many of the qualities of the pure Bedouin. During our intercourse I had every reason to be satisfied with his hospitality and the cordial aid he afforded me. The Jebour chief was a complete patriarch in his tribe, having no less than sixteen children, of whom six sons were horsemen and the owners of mares. The youngest, a boy of four years old, named Sultan, was as handsome and dirty as the best of Arab children. His mother, who had recently died, was the beautiful sister of Abd-rubbou. I chanced to be her brother’s guest when the news of her death was brought to him. An Arab of the tribe, weary and wayworn, entered the tent and seated himself without giving the usual salutation; all present knew that he had come from the Khabour and from distant friends. His silence argued evil tidings. By an indirect remark, immediately understood, he told his errand to one who sat next him, and who in turn whispered it to Sheikh Ibrahim, the chief’s uncle. The old man said aloud, with a sigh, “It is the will and mercy of God; she is not dead but released!” Abd-rubbou at once understood of whom he spake. He arose and went forth, and the wailing of the mother and of the women soon issued from the inner recesses of the tent.

My first care, after crossing to Arban, was to examine the sculptures described by the Arabs. The river having gradually worn away the mound had, during the recent floods, left uncovered a pair of winged human-headed bulls, some six feet above the water’s edge, and full fifty beneath the level of the ruin. Only the forepart of these figures had been exposed to view, and Mohammed Emin would not allow any of the soil to be removed before my arrival. The earth was soon cleared away, and I found them to be of a coarse limestone, not exceeding 5½ feet in height by 4½ in length. Between them was a pavement slab of the same material. They resembled in general form the well-known winged bulls of Nineveh, but in the style of art they differed considerably from them. The outline and treatment was bold and angular, with an archaic feeling conveying the impression of great antiquity. They bore the same relation to the more delicately finished and highly ornamented sculptures of Nimroud, as the earliest remains of Greek art do to the exquisite monuments of Phidias and Praxiteles. The human features were unfortunately much injured, but such parts as remained were sufficient to show that the countenance had a peculiar character, differing from the Assyrian type. The sockets of the eyes were deeply sunk, probably to receive the white and the ball of the eye in ivory or glass. The nose was flat and large, and the lips thick and overhanging like those of a negro. Human ears were attached to the head, and bull’s ears to the horned cap, which was low and square at the top, not high and ornamented like those of Khorsabad and Kouyunjik, nor rounded like those of Nimroud. The hair was elaborately curled, as in the pure Assyrian sculptures, though more rudely carved. The wings were small in proportion to the size of the body, and had not the majestic spread of those of the bulls that adorned the palaces of Nineveh.

It would appear from them that the sculptures belonged to the palace of a king whose name has been found on no other monument. No titles are attached to it, not even that of “king;” nor is the country over which he reigned mentioned; so that some doubt may exist as to whether it really be a royal name.

The great accumulation of earth above these sculptures proves that, since the destruction of the edifice in which they stood, other habitations have been raised on its ruins. Arban, indeed, is mentioned by the Arab geographers as a flourishing city, in a singularly fertile district of the Khabour. Part of a minaret, whose walls were cased with colored tiles, and ornamented with cufic inscriptions in relief, like that of the Sinjar, and the foundations of buildings, are still seen on the mound; and at its foot; on the western side, are the remains of a bridge which once spanned the stream. But the river has changed its course. The piers, adorned with elegantly shaped arabesque characters, are now on the dry land.

I will describe, at once, the results of the excavations carried on during the three weeks our tents were pitched at Arban. To please the Jebour Sheikh, and to keep around our encampment, for greater security, a body of armed men, when the tribe changed their pastures, I hired about fifty of Mohammed Emin’s Arabs, and placed them in parties with the workmen who had accompanied me from Mosul. Tunnels were opened behind the bulls already uncovered, and in various parts of the ruins on the same level. Trenches were also dug into the surface of the mound.

Behind the bulls were found various Assyrian relics; amongst them a copper bell, like those from Nimroud, and fragments of bricks with arrow-headed characters painted yellow with white outlines, upon a pale green ground. In other parts of the mound were discovered glass and pottery, some Assyrian, others of a more doubtful character. Several fragments of earthenware, ornamented with flowers and scrollwork, and highly glazed, had assumed the brilliant and varied iridescence of ancient glass.[120]

It was natural to conclude, from the usual architectural arrangement of Assyrian edifices, that the two bulls described stood at an entrance to a hall or chamber. We searched in vain for the remains of walls, although digging for three days to the right and left of the sculptures, a work of considerable difficulty in consequence of the immense heap of superincumbent earth. I then directed a tunnel to be carried towards the centre of the mound, hoping to find a corresponding doorway opposite. I was not disappointed. On the fifth day a similar pair of winged bulls were discovered. They were of the same size, and inscribed with the same characters. A part of one having been originally broken off, either in carving the sculpture or in moving it, a fresh piece of stone had been carefully fitted into its place. I also dug to the right and left of these sculptures for remains of walls, but without success, and then resumed the tunnelling towards the centre of the mound. In a few days a lion, with extended jaws, sculptured in the same coarse limestone, and in the same bold archaic style as the bulls, was discovered. It had five legs, and the tail had the claw at the end, as in the Nineveh bas-reliefs. In height it was nearly the same as the bulls. I searched in vain for the one which must have formed the opposite side of the doorway.

Lion discovered at Arban.

With the exception of these sculptures, no remains of building were found in this part of the mound. In another tunnel, opened at some distance from the bulls, half of a human figure in relief was discovered.[121] The face was in full. One hand grasped a sword or dagger; the other held some object to the breast. The hair and beard were long and flowing, and ornamented with a profusion of curls as in the Assyrian bas-reliefs. The head-dress appeared to consist of a kind of circular helmet, ending in a sharp point. The treatment and style marked the sculpture to be of the same period as the bull and lion.

Such were the sculptures discovered in the mound of Arban. Amongst smaller objects of different periods were some of considerable interest, jars, vases, funeral urns, highly-glazed pottery, and fragments of glass. In a trench, on the south side of the ruin, was found a small green and white bottle, inscribed with Chinese characters.

A jar, about four feet high, in coarse half-baked clay, was dug out of the centre of the mound. The handles were formed by rudely-designed human figures, and the sides covered with grotesque representations of men and animals, and arabesque ornaments in relief.

Vases of the same material, ornamented with figures, are frequently discovered in digging the foundations of houses in the modern town of Mosul. They appear to belong to a comparatively recent period, later probably than the Christian era, but previous to the Arab occupation. As they have upon them human figures, dressed in a peculiar costume, consisting of a high cap and embroidered robes, I should attribute them to the Persians. A vase similar in size and shape to that of Arban, and also covered with grotesque representations of monstrous animals, the finest specimen I have seen of this class of antiquities, was found beneath the foundations of the very ancient ChaldÆan church of Meskinta at Mosul, when that edifice was pulled down and rebuilt two years ago. It was given to me by the Catholic ChaldÆan Patriarch, to whom it belonged as chief of the community, but was unfortunately destroyed, with other interesting relics, by the Arabs, who plundered a raft laden with antiquities, on its way to Baghdad, after my return to Europe.

Amongst other relics discovered at Arban were, a large copper ring, apparently Assyrian; an ornament in earthenware, resembling the pine-cone of the Assyrian sculptures; a bull’s head in terracotta; fragments of painted bricks, probably of the same period; and several Egyptian scarabÆi. It is singular that engraved stones and scarabs bearing Egyptian devices, and in some instances even royal cartouches, should have been found on the banks of the Khabour. Similar objects were subsequently dug up at Nimroud, and brought to me by the Arabs from various ruins in Assyria.

It may be well for the reader to observe in this connection, that most of the Egyptian relics discovered in the Assyrian ruins are of the time of the 18th Egyptian dynasty, or of the 15th century before Christ; a period when, as we learn from Egyptian monuments, there was a close connection between Assyria and Egypt.Several tombs were also found in the ruins, consisting principally of boxes, or sarcophagi, of earthenware, like those existing above the Assyrian palaces near Mosul. Some, however, were formed by two large earthen jars, like the common Eastern vessel for holding oil, laid horizontally, and joined mouth to mouth. These terracotta coffins appear to be of the same period as those found in all the great ruins on the banks of the rivers of Mesopotamia, and are not Assyrian. They contained human remains turned to dust, with the exception of the skull and a few of the larger bones, and generally three or four urns of highly-glazed blue pottery.

Fewer remains and objects of antiquity were discovered in the mounds on the Khabour than I had anticipated. They were sufficient, however, to prove that the ruins are, on the whole, of the same character as those on the banks of the Tigris. That the Assyrian empire at one time embraced the whole of Mesopotamia, including the country watered by the Khabour, there can be no doubt, as indeed is shown by the inscriptions on the monuments of Nineveh. Whether the sculptures at Arban belong to the period of Assyrian domination, or to a distinct nation afterwards conquered, or whether they may be looked upon as cotemporary with, or more ancient than, the bas-reliefs of Nimroud, are questions not so easily answered. The archaic character of the treatment and design, the peculiar form of the features, the rude though forcible delineation of the muscles, and the simplicity of the details, certainly convey the impression of greater antiquity than any monuments hitherto discovered in Assyria Proper.[122]A deep interest, at the same time, attaches to these remains from the site they occupy. To the Chebar were transported by the Assyrian king, after the destruction of Samaria, the captive children of Israel, and on its banks “the heavens were opened” to Ezekiel, and “he saw visions of God,” and spake his prophecies to his brother exiles.[123] Around Arban may have been pitched the tents of the sorrowing Jews, as those of the Arabs were during my visit. To the same pastures they led their sheep, and they drank of the same waters. Then the banks of the river were covered with towns and villages, and a palace-temple still stood on the mound, reflected in the transparent stream. We have, however, but one name connected with the Khabour recorded in Scripture, that of Tel-Abib, “the mound of Abib, or, of the heaps of ears of corn,” but whether it applies to a town, or to a simple artificial elevation, such as still abound, and are still called “tels,” is a matter of doubt. I sought in vain for some trace of the word amongst the names now given by the wandering Arab to the various ruins on the Khabour and its confluents.[124]We know that Jews still lingered in the cities of the Khabour until long after the Arab invasion; and we may perhaps recognise in the Jewish communities of Ras-al-Ain, at the sources of the river, and of Karkisia, or Carchemish, at its confluence with the Euphrates, visited and described by Benjamin of Tudela, in the latter end of the twelfth century of the Christian Æra, the descendants of the captive Israelites.

But the hand of time has long since swept even this remnant away, with the busy crowds which thronged the banks of the river. From its mouth to its source, from Carchemish to Ras-al-Ain, there is now no single permanent human habitation on the Khabour. Its rich meadows and its deserted ruins are alike become the encamping places of the wandering Arab.

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