Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/213

 CONSTRUCTION. 191 are no more than about twenty-six inches wide, but this width must often have been greatly surpassed elsewhere. Indeed, in the same building the first story was reached by a staircase about seventy feet long and sixteen wide. The stone steps were twenty- two inches long, thirteen broad, and one foot deep. They were fixed with great care by means of bronze clasps. Unfortunately the explorer gives us neither plan nor elevation of this monumental staircase. Layard believed that, in passing the Mesopotamian mounds, he could often distinguish upon them traces of the flights of steps by which their summits were reached. 1 On the eastern face of the palace of Sennacherib, he says, the remains of the wide slopes by which the palace communicated with the plain were quite visible FIG. 66. Outside staircases in the ruins of Abou-Shareyn. to him. 2 One of these staircases is figured in a bas-relief from Nimroud ; it seems to rise to a line of battlements that form, no doubt, the parapet to a flat terrace behind. 3 Finally, in another relief, the sculptor shows two flights of steps bending round one part of a mound and each coming to an end at a door into the temple on its summit. The curve described by this ramp involved the use of steps, which are given in M. Chipiez's Restoration (Plate IV.). An interesting series of reliefs, brought to England from Kouyundjik, proves that in the palace interiors there were inclined galleries for the use of the servants. The lower 1 LAYARD, Discoveries, p. 260. 2 LAYARD, Discoveries, pp. 645-6. 3 LAYARD, Monuments, &c., first series, plate 19. This relief is reproduced in ,PLACE, Ninive, vol. iii. plate 40, fig. 6.