pomp. Even after archaeologists and historians began to uncover the true history of ancient Assyria in the 19th century, the perception rooted in Greco-Roman tradition proved to be enduring. When the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard found evidence of a major fire in the ruins of Nimrud (which he believed to be Nineveh) in 1845, his colleagues suggested that this was proof of the Sardanapalus legend. Even after discoveries made it clear that the Sardanapalus of legend was far from a perfect match of the Ashurbanipal of history, the legend was not forgotten. Instead, plays and films featuring Sardanapalus simply began to mix the legendary tale with historical details. Many plays began to incorporate Assyrian architectural details, such as lamassus. Two films based on the Sardanapalus legend have been produced in Italy; Giuseppe de Liguoro's Sardanapalo re dell'Assiria (1910) and Silvio Amadio's Le sette folgori di Assur (1962), both heavily influenced by Byron's play. Both follow Sardanapalus's relationship with Myrrah. In Amadio's film, the narrative is also inspired by Ashurbanipal's conflict with Shamash-shum-ukin, who appears in the film under the shortened name Shamash. Modern perception Rediscoveries and assessments The North Palace of Nineveh, constructed by Ashurbanipal, was rediscovered by the British-funded Assyrian archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam in December 1853. Rassam's excavations were a somewhat strange episode in Assyriology as his efforts were also marked by an intense rivalry with the French archaeologist Victor Place; despite agreements as to who should excavate where, Ashurbanipal's palace was found by Rassam during the night, when he sent out a team of excavators under the cover of darkness to dig in the French portion of the Nineveh excavation. Excavations where conducted in the palace in 1853–1854. Among other discoveries, Rassam recovered the reliefs making up the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal, which were taken from the palace and transported to the British Museum, reaching England in March 1856. Because of scholarly disagreements and rivalries, as well as issues of funding, studies and publications of the finds from Ashurbanipal's palace were produced slowly, with the first detailed analyses and studies not being published until the 1930s and 1940s. Ashurbanipal's reign was the last time when Assyrian armies campaigned all across the Middle East. He is consequently typically regarded to have been the "last great king of Assyria". Ashurbanipal's reign is sometimes considered the apogee of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, though many scholars instead consider the preceding reign of