Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/205

 CONSTRUCTION. 18 some parts they are as much as fifteen, twenty, and fi ve-and-twenty feet, an elevation far in excess of a man's stature, and they show no trace of a window. Hence we may at least affirm that windows were not pierced under the same conditions as in modern architecture. 1 And yet the long saloons of the palace with their rich decora- tion had need of light, which they could only obtain through the doorways and the openings left in the roof. When this was of FIG. 61. Armenian "Lantern ;" from Botta. wood the matter was simple enough, as our diagram (Fig. 60) shows. Botta noticed, during his journey to his post, another arrangement, of which, he thinks, the Assyrians may very well have made use. 1 PLACE, Ninive, vol. i. p. 309. In this passage M. Place affirms that Mr. Layard discovered in a room of one of the Ninevite palaces, several openings cut at less than four feet above the floor level. It is, moreover, certain that these openings were included in the original plan of the building, because the reliefs are interrupted so as to leave room for the window without injury to the scenes sculptured upon them ; but, adds M. Place, this example is unique, one of those exceptions that help to confirm a rule. We have in vain searched through the two works of Sir Henry Layard for the statement alluded to by M. Place. The English ex- plorer only once mentions windows, and then he says : " Even in the rooms bounded by the outer walls there is not the slightest trace of windows " (Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 260).