easily distinguishable.  The furniture of the palace was sent to Nineveh in a long procession; it comprised beds and chairs of ivory, and chariots encrusted with enamel and precious stones, the horses of which were caparisoned with gold.  The soldiers made their way into the ziggurat, tore down the plates of ruddy copper, violated the sanctuary, and desecrated the prophetic statues of the gods who dwelt within it, shrouded in the sacred gloom, and whose names were only uttered by their devotees with trembling lips.  Shumudu, Lagamar, Partikira, Ammankasibar, Uduran, Sapak, Aipaksina, Bilala, Panintimri, and Kindakarpu, were now brought forth to the light, and made ready to be carried into exile together with their belongings and their priests.

[Illustration:  251.jpg STATUES OF THE GODS CARRIED OFF BY ASSYRIAN SOLDIERY]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard, The Monuments of
     Nineveh.

Thirty-two statues of the kings, both ancient and modern, in silver, gold, bronze, and marble, escorted the gods on their exodus, among their number being those of Khumbanigash, son of Umbadara, Shutruk-nakhunta, and Tammaritu II., the sovereigns who had treated Assyria with the greatest indignity.  The effigy of Khalludush was subjected to humiliating outrage:  “his mouth, with its menacing smile, was mutilated; his lips, which breathed forth defiance, were slit; his hands, which had brandished the bow against Assur, were cut off,” to avenge, though tardily, the ill success of Sennacherib.  The sacred groves shared the fate of the temples, and all the riches collected in them by generations of victors were carried off in cartloads.  They contained, amongst other edifices, the tombs of the ancient heroes of Elam, who had feared neither Assur nor Ishtar, and who had often brought trouble on the ancestors of Assur-bani-pal.  Their sepulchres were violated, their coffins broken open, their bones collected and despatched to Nineveh, to crumble finally into dust in the land of exile:  their souls, chained to their mortal bodies, shared their captivity, and if they were provided with the necessary sustenance and libations to keep them from annihilation, it was not from any motives of compassion or pity, but from a refinement of vengeance, in order that they might the longer taste the humiliation of captivity.

[Illustration:  252.jpg THE TUMULUS OF SUZA]

The image of Nana was found among those of the native gods:  it was now separated from them, and after having been cleansed from pollution by the prescribed ceremonies, it was conducted to Uruk, which it entered in triumph on the 1st of the month Kislev.  It was reinstated in the temple it had inhabited of old:  sixteen hundred and thirty-five years had passed since it had been carried off, in the reign of Kutur-nakhunta, to dwell as a prisoner in Susa.