They consist almost entirely of a single series, discovered by Mr.Layard in a chamber of the North-West Palace at Nimrud, in the near vicinity of slabs on which was engraved the name of Sargon.

The most remarkable point connected with them is the thoroughly Egyptian character of the greater number which at first sight have almost the appearance of being importations from the valley of the Nile.

Egyptian profiles, head-dresses, fashions of dressing the hair, ornaments, attitudes, meet us at every turn; while sometimes we find the representations of Egyptian gods, and in two cases hieroglyphics within cartouches.

(See [PLATE LXXVIII.]) A few specimens only are of a distinctly Assyrian type, as a fragment of a panel, figured by Mr.
Layard [PLATE LXXVII., Fig.

1], and one or two others, in which the guilloche border appears.