And there came a messenger, and told him, saying, They have brought the heads of the king's sons. And he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning.
Lay ye them in two heaps ... The exhibition of the heads of enemies in the East in ancient times always was considered a glorious trophy. Sometimes a pile of heads was erected at the gate of the palace, and a head of peculiarly striking appearance selected to grace the summit of the pyramid. On the sculptures at Khorsabad, Kouyunjik, and Nimroud, eunuchs are seen collecting the heads of the slain, and writing down the number ('Nineveh and its Remains,' 2:, p. 377). This mode of reckoning the loss of an enemy was long practiced in the East; but the Egyptians generally counted by hands, and Saul, at least in one instance, fixed upon another part of the body as a trophy (1 Samuel 18:25; 1 Samuel 18:27). The heads of Ahaziah's brethren are described as piled up in two heaps at the entrance gate of Samaria; and such trophies are still laid at the gates of Eastern cities. At the principal entrance to the Sultan's palace in Constantinople there are niches appropriated to this purpose; but when there is a large number of heads, two pyramids are formed of them at each side of the gate. The same practice prevails extensively throughout Asia, particularly in Persia. Oriental conquerors, ambitious of a permanent monument of glory, sometimes erect pillars, or triumphal arches, which are inlaid at the arches, or other conspicuous parts, with heads of the king or generals of the enemy. Several of these pillars exist in Turkey and Persia, particularly in the gateways of Bagdad, where such monuments were at a comparatively recent period raised with the heads of 200 Khezail Arabs, captured by the pasha. Such barbarous usages are revolting to humanity; but we need not wonder at their prevalence in the ancient and modern East, when we remember that almost down to the beginning of the present century, gibbeting the corpses of criminals was practiced in many parts of this country.