[PLATE CXLVI., Fig.

2.] The figures near the lions were mythic, and exhibited somewhat more than usual grotesqueness, as we learn from the representations of them given by Mr.
Layard.
While the evidence of the actual monuments as to the character of Esar-haddon's buildings and their ornamentation is thus scanty, it happens, curiously, that the Inscriptions furnish a particularly elaborate and detailed account of them.

It appears, from the principal record of the time, that the temples which Esar-haddon built in Assyria and Babylonia--thirty-six in number--were richly adorned with plates of silver and gold, which made then (in the words of the Inscription) "as splendid as the day." His palace at Nineveh, a building situated on the mound called Nebbi Yunus, was, we are told, erected upon the site of a former palace of the kings of Assyria.

Preparations for its construction were made, as for the great buildings of Solomon by the collection of materials, iii wood, stone, and metal, beforehand: these were furnished by the Phoenician, Syrian, and Cyprian monarchs, who sent to Nineveh for the purpose great beams of cedar, cypress, and ebony, stone statues, and various works in metals of different kinds.

The palace itself is said to have exceeded in size all buildings of former kings.