Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c&c: during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820 . are seven in a range,which have formerly stood out from the rock in something morethan bas-relief, and their bearded visages are tolerably distinct;but all that is observable, shews that the work has been done bythe very coarsest chizel. The principal cause of the generalmutilation of this specimen of remote antiquity, must have arisenfrom subsequent additions, without reference to it, having beenmade on the same spot. First, a large and deep tablet has beenexcavated in the very middle o
Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c&c: during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820 . are seven in a range,which have formerly stood out from the rock in something morethan bas-relief, and their bearded visages are tolerably distinct;but all that is observable, shews that the work has been done bythe very coarsest chizel. The principal cause of the generalmutilation of this specimen of remote antiquity, must have arisenfrom subsequent additions, without reference to it, having beenmade on the same spot. First, a large and deep tablet has beenexcavated in the very middle of the sculpture, for the purpose ofcontaining a Greek inscription; and, secondly, a few years ago,this was almost entirely obliterated by another in the moderncharacter of the country, relating to some royal grants for theroad. It being long and closely written, very little can now bediscerned of its predecessor; but that little I have copied, leavinggaps where the stone was broken away by the rough hand ofman: time, in this country, appearing to deal gently with all hisworks. Kl4>AA)hA^IMl0rAi/^ni. 152 ANCIENT ASSYRIAN SCULPTURES, The neighbourhood of fountains seems to have been a fa-vourite spot with the ancients, for places of sechision, or com-memorating erections, whether they were temples, or monumentsof any kind; and the situation of this stream, so immediatelyunder the great mutilated bas-relief on the rock, could not failrecalling to my recollection a similar spring that gushes over thesloping cliff which sustains the mysterious tablets of Gunj Nam-hal, in the bosom of Orontes. Mr. Macdonald Kinnier, in hisvaluable Geographical Memoir of the Persian Empire, makes aninteresting notice of this fountain of the bas-relief, in remarkingon the sculpture itself. On the authority of Diodorus Siculus,he seems inclined to attribute the gigantic remains over thespring, to so distant a time as that of Semiramis; and, accord-ingly, he observes, I shall confine myself to a few r
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