File:Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. - during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820 (1821) (14797805263).jpg

Identifier: travelsingeorgia02port (find matches)
Title: Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. : during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820
Year: 1821 (1820s)
Authors: Porter, Robert Ker, Sir, 1777-1842
Subjects: Porter, Robert Ker, Sir, 1777-1842
Publisher: London : Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown
Contributing Library: Tisch Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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e of speaking to the eye, in their temples; and we find Euripides making Ion, in describing the temple at Delphi, particularly observe the battle of the giants, sculptured on the wall in stone. The Egyptian temples are not wanting in statuary of every kind. But it is not necessary to confine the wall of the Mesched Ali to a temple; it may have belonged to the residence of some great personage; yet, at any rate, it was an object of great interest to an antiquarian to examine ; and whether the work were of ancient, or more modern unbelievers, my mortification was extreme, when, so near the spot, I wasforced to abandon it. Small figures, both in bronze and clay, are frequently picked up all over the ruins of Babylon; but the only large vestiges of sculpture that I have been able to trace, are the colossal figure of the lion which Mr. Rich discovered in the depths of the Kasr, standing on a pedestal of coarse grey granite, of very rude workmanship; and a large fragment of a figure, which the same
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•I V RETURNS TO BAGDAD. 407 gentleman saw lying in the desert about midway between Hillahand the site of Seleucia. It consisted of the lower half of thestatue of a man in a sitting posture; the legs were naked, and closed together in the Egyptian style ; the hands rested on the thighs. It was cut in a bluish basalt. That so few of these specimens have at all become visible in our days, is not surprising, since we may be assured that in like manner as Babylonhad plundered Egypt, Assyria, and Judea, of their statues, theirgold and their silver, and even the very architectural ornaments of their palaces and temples; so, we can have no doubt, that this rich treasury of the antiquities of all nations would become the spoil of her successive conquerors, till nothing remained for thefalling ruins to bury. Having taken my last farewell of her silent scene, her sublime solitude, and yet with how many tongues had her awful apparition spoken to me! I repaired to the camp of the Kiahya Bey, to ret

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