Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/334

 12 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALD/EA AND ASSYRIA. ment of their edifices. All the buildings of Chaldasa and o Assyria are orientated ; the principle is everywhere observed, but it is not always understood in the same fashion. Mesopotamian buildings were always rectangular and often square on plan, and it is sometimes the angles and sometimes the centres of each face that are directed to the four cardinal points. It will easily be understood that the former system was generally preferred. The facades were of such extent that their direction to a certain point of the horizon was not evident, while salient angles, on the other hand, had all the precision of an astronomical calculation ; and this the earliest architects of the Chaldees thoroughly under- stood. Some of the buildings examined by Loftus and Taylor on FIG. 143. Plan of a temple at Mugheir j from Loftus. the lower Euphrates may have been restored, more or less, by Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, but it is generally acknow- ledged that the lower and less easily injured parts of most of these buildings date from the very beginnings of that civilization, and were constructed by the princes of the early empire. Now both at Warka and at Mugheir one corner of a building is always turned towards the true north. 1 An instance of this may be given in the little building at Mugheir in which the lower parts of a temple have been recognized (Fig. 143). The same arrangement is to be found in the palace excavated by M. de Sarzec at Tello. 2 Most of the Assyrian architects did likewise. See for example the plan of Sargon's city, Dour-Saryoukin (Fig. 144). Its cir- cumvallation incloses an almost exact square, the diagonals of 1 LOFTUS, Travels and Researches,^. 171. 2 Les Fouilles de Chaldce, communication cTune Lett rede M. de Sarzec par M. Leon Heuzey, 2 (Revue archeologique, November, 1881).