Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/200

 i;8 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALIXKA AND ASSYRIA. between them and the beams they support. A sort of rustic order is thus constituted of which the shaft alone is of wood. We reproduce a sketch by Sir H. Layard in which this arrange- ment is shown. It is taken from a house inhabited by Yezidis, 1 in the district of Upper Mesopotamia called Sinjar (Fig. 58). We are inclined to think that both systems were occasionally found in a single building. The tunnel vault and the joisted ceiling were equally well suited to the long galleries of Assyrian palaces. In one room, or suite of rooms, nothing but brick may have been used, while in others wood may have had the preference. Still more probably, one architect may have had a predilection for FIG. 58. Interior of a Yezidi home ; from Layard. timber, while another may have preferred clay vaults. In either case the general arrangement, what we may call the spirit of the plan, would remain the same. 1 As to this singular people and their religious beliefs, the information contained in the two works of Sir H. LAYARD (Nineveh, vol. i. pp. 270-305, and Discoveries, pp. 40-92) will be read with interest. Thanks to special circumstances Sir H. Layard was able to become more intimately acquainted than any other traveller with this much-abused and cruelly persecuted sect. He collected much valuable information upon doctrines which, even after his relation, are not a little obscure and confused. The Yezidis have a peculiar veneration for the evil principle, or Satan ; they also seem to worship the sun. Their religion is in fact a conglomeration of various survivals from the different systems that have successively obtained in that part of Asia. They themselves have no clear idea of it as a whole. It would repay study by an archaeologist of religions.