The kings of Assyria were not content with recording their achievements on the walls of their buildings, on stelae set up in their palaces and temples, on their tablets of annals preserved in their archive-chambers, and on their cylinders and foundation-memorials concealed within the actual structure of the buildings themselves.  They have also left records graven in the living rock, and these have never been buried, but have been exposed to wind and weather from the moment they were engraved.  Records of irrigation works and military operations successfully undertaken by Assyrian kings remain to this day on the face of the mountains to the north and east of Assyria.  The kings of one great mountain race that had its capital at Van borrowed from the Assyrians this method of recording their achievements, and, adopting the Assyrian character, have left numerous rock-inscriptions in their own language in the mountains of Armenia and Kurdistan.  In some instances the action of rain and frost has nearly if not quite obliterated the record, and a few have been defaced by the hand of man.  But as the majority are engraved in panels cut on the sheer face of the rock, and are inaccessible except by means of ropes and tackle, they have escaped mutilation.  The photograph reproduced will serve to show the means that must be adopted for reaching such rock-inscriptions in order to examine or copy them.

[Illustration:  413.jpg WORK IN PROGRESS ON ONE OF THE ROCK-INSCRIPTIONS OF SENNACHERIB]

     In The Gorge Of The River Gomel, Near Bavian.

The inscription shown in the photograph is one of those cut by Sennacherib in the gorge near Bavian, through which the river Gomel flows, and can be reached only by climbing down ropes fixed to the top of the cliff.  The choice of such positions by the kings who caused the inscriptions to be engraved was dictated by the desire to render it difficult to destroy them, but it has also had the effect of delaying to some extent their copying and decipherment by modern workers.

[Illustration:  414.jpg THE PRINCIPAL ROCK SCULPTURES IN THE GORGE OF THE GOMEL]

     Near Bavian In Assyria.

Considerable progress, however, has recently been made in identifying and copying these texts, and we may here give a short account of what has been done and of the information furnished by the inscriptions that have been examined.

Recently considerable additions have been made to our knowledge of the ancient empire of Van and of its relation to the later kings of Assyria by the labours of Prof Lehmann and Dr. Belck on the inscriptions which the kings of that period caused to be engraved upon the rocks among the mountains of Armenia.

[Illustration:  415.jpg THE ROCK AND CITADEL OF VAN.]

The flat roofs of the houses of the city of Van may be seen to the left of the photograph nestling below the rock.

The centre and capital of this empire was the ancient city which stood on the site of the modern town of Van at the southwest corner of the lake which bears the same name.  The city was built at the foot of a natural rock which rises precipitously from the plain, and must have formed an impregnable stronghold against the attack of the foe.