the owner of the mound, who was anxious to get the excavations finished
so that he might again graze his flocks on the mound, urged Rassam
to get to work in spite of Rawlinson's agreement with M. Place. He
and Rassam made arrangements to excavate the northern part of the
mound clandestinely and by night, and on 20th December, 1853, the
work began. On the first night nothing of importance was found; on
the second night the men uncovered a portion of a large bas-relief;
and on the third night a huge mass of earth collapsed revealing a very
fine bas-relief, sculptured with a scene representing Ashur-bani-pal
standing in his chariot. The news of the discovery was quickly carried
to all parts of the neighbourhood, and as it was impossible to keep
the diggings secret any longer, the work was continued openly and by
day. The last-mentioned bas-relief was one of the series that lined
the chamber, which was 50 feet long and 15 feet wide, and illustrated
a royal lion hunt. [2] This series, that is to say, all of it that
the fire which destroyed the palace had spared, is now in the British
Museum (see the Gallery of the Assyrian Saloon).

Whilst the workmen were clearing out the Chamber of the Lion Hunt
they came across several heaps of inscribed baked clay tablets of "all
shapes and sizes," which resembled in general appearance the tablets
that Layard had found in the South West Palace the year before. There
were no remains with them, or near them, that suggested they had been
arranged systematically and stored in the Chamber of the Lion Hunt,
and it seems as if they had been brought there from another place and
thrown down hastily, for nearly all of them were broken into small
pieces. As some of them bore traces of having been exposed to great
heat they must have been in that chamber during the burning of the
palace. When the tablets were brought to England and were examined by
Rawlinson, it was found from the information supplied by the colophons