Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/263

 Assyrian Sculpture. 2 3i We have already spoken of the bas-relief of Korkhar ; 1 it is about three hundred miles from Nineveh, but the Assyrian con- querors left traces of their passage even farther from the capital than that, in the famous pass of the Lycos, for instance, near modern Beyrout, and now called Nahr-el-Kelb, or river of the dog. A rock-cut road passes through it, which has been followed from the remotest times by armies advancing from the north upon Egypt, or from the latter country towards Damascus and

lj -riVi Wï Fig. 122. — Assyrian bas-relief in the Nahr-el-Kelb. Drawn by P. Sellier. the fords of the Euphrates. Following the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, Esarhaddon caused his own image and royal titles to be cut in this defile ; they may still be seen there, on rocks whose feet stand in the bed of the torrent (Fig. 122). 2 1 Page 203. 2 In the valley of the Nahr-el-Kelb, there are five or six Assyrian reliefs mingled with those of Egyptian origin. They may at once be distinguished from the works of the Rameses by their arched tops. The only one of which the inscriptions are still legible, is that of Esarhaddon (see Monuments inédits de V Institut de Corres- pondance archéologique, 1858, plate 51, fig. F, and especially Lepsius, digyptische Denkmœler, part iii. plate 197, fig. d). Judging from their style and the historical