Note 145 — Chapter II

As to the employment in Assyria of cedar from the Lebanon, see François Lenormant, Histoire Ancienne, vol. ii. p. 191, and an inscription of Sennacherib, translated by Oppert, Les Sargonides, pp. 52, 53. Its use in Babylon is proved by several passages of the great text known as the Inscription of London, in which Nebuchadnezzar recounts the great works he had caused to be carried out in his capital (Lenormant, Histoire, vol. ii. pp. 228 and 233). We find this phrase among others, "I used in the chamber of oracles the largest of the trees transported from the summits of Lebanon." Layard (Discoveries, pp. 356-7) tells us that one evening during the Nimroud excavations, his labourers lighted a fire to dry themselves after a storm, which they fed with timbers taken from the ruins. The smell of burning cedar, a perfume which so many Greek and Latin poets have praised (urit odoratam nocturna in lumina cedrum, Virgil, Æneid, vii. 13), apprised him of what was going on. In the British Museum (Nimroud Gallery, Case A), fragments of recovered joists may be seen. They are in such good preservation that they might be shaped and polished anew, so as to again bring out the markings and the fine dark-yellow tone which contributed not a little to make the wood so precious. It was sought both for its agreeable appearance and its known solidity; and experience has proved that the popular opinion which declared it incorruptible had some foundation.