Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/149

 THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF FORM. 129 emblems ; religious processions could be marshalled within its bounds. The general, we may almost say the invariable, rule in Mesopotamia was that every structure of a certain importance should be thus borne on an artificial hill. An examination of the ruins themselves and of the monuments figured upon the bas- reliefs shows us that these substructures did not always have the same form. Their faces were sometimes vertical, sometimes inclined ; sometimes again they presented a gentle outward curve (see Fig. 34) ; but these purely external differences did not affect the principle. In all the river basins of Mesopotamia, whether of the Euphrates, the Tigris, or the smallest affluents of the Persian FIG. 35. Tell-Edc.', in Lower Chald;iea. From Raulinsou's l've Great Moiuu chics. Gulf, whenever you see one of these tells, or isolated mounds, standing above the general surface of the plain, you may be sure that if you drive a trench into it you will come upon those courses of crude brick that proclaim its artificial origin. Rounded by natural disintegration and scarred by the rain torrents, such a hillock is apt to deceive the thoughtless or ignorant traveller, but an instructed explorer knows at a glance that many centuries ago it bore on its summit a temple, a fortress, or some royal or lordly habitation (Fig. 35). The distinguishing feature of the staged towers is their striving after the greatest possible elevation. It is true that neither from Herodotus nor Diodorus do we get any definite statements as to s