Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/179

 CONSTRUCTION. 157 without exception, the presence of these supports, and, as a rule, they are better and more carefully built than the structures whose walls they sustain. Their existence has been affirmed by every traveller who has explored the ruins of Chaldsea, 1 and in Assyria they are also to be found, especially in front of the fine retaining wall that helps to support the platform on which the palace of Sargon was built. 2 The architect counted upon the weight of his building, and upon these ponderous buttresses, to give it a firm foundation and to maintain the equilibrium of its materials. As a rule there were no foundations, as we understand the word. At A bo IL- Share in, in Chaldsea, the monument described by Taylor and the brick pavement that surrounds it are both placed upon the sand. 3 Botta noticed something of the same kind in connection with the palace walls at Khorsabad : " They rest," he says, " upon the very bricks of the mound without the intervention of any plinth or other kind of solid foundation, so that here and there they have sunk below the original level of the platform upon which they are placed." 4 This was not due to negligence, for in other respects these structures betray a painstaking desire to insure the stability of the work, and no little skill in the selection of means. Thus the Chaldaean architect pierced his crude brick masses with numerous narrow tunnels, or ventilating pipes, through which the warm and desiccating air of a Mesopotamian summer could be brought into contact with every part, and the slight remains of moisture still left in the bricks when fixed could be gradually carried off. These shafts have been found in the ruins of Babylon and of other Chaldsean cities. 5 Nothing of the kind has been discovered in Assyria, and for a very simple reason. It would have been 1 LOKTUS, Warka, its Ruins, &c. p. 10. 2 PLACE, Ninive, vol. i. pp. 29 and 248. 3 TAYLOR, Notes on Aboii-Shahrein and Tcll-el-Lahm (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xv. p. 408). 4 BOTTA, Monument de Ninive, vol. v. p. 58. ' NIEBUHR (Voyage en Arabic, vol. ii. p. 235) noticed this, and his observations have since been confirmed by many other visitors to the ruins of Babylon. KER PORTER (vol. ii. p. 391) noticed them in the ruins of Al-Heimar. See also TAYLOR on " Mugeyr," &c. (Journal, &c. vol. xv. p. 261). At Birs-Nimroud these conduits are about nine inches high and between five and six wide. They are well shown in the drawing given by FLAN DIN and COSTE of this ruin (Perse ancicnne et iiwderne, pi. 221, cf. text i, p. 181).