--_R.A.
Proctor, in Newcastle Weekly Chronicle_.
* * * * *
AN ASSYRIAN BASS-RELIEF 2,700 YEARS OLD.
There was exhibited at the last meeting of the Numismatic and
Antiquarian Society, in Philadelphia, on May 7, an object of great
interest to archaeologists, with which, says _The Church_, is also
connected a very curious history.
It appears that about forty years ago a young American minister, Rev.
W.F. Williams, went as a missionary to Syria, and he visited among
places of interest the site of ancient Nineveh about the time that
Austin Henry Layard was making his famous explorations and discoveries;
he wrote to a friend in Philadelphia that he had secured for him a fine
piece of Assyrian sculpture from one of the recently opened temples or
palaces, representing a life size figure of a king, clad in royal robes,
bearing in one hand a basket and in the other a fir cone. One portion
of the stone was covered with hieroglyphics, and was as sharply cut as
though it had been carved by a modern hand instead of by an artist who
was sleeping in his grave when Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, was yet
an infant.
The letter describing this treasure arrived duly, but the stones did not
come.
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