Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/350

 328 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALD/KA AND ASSYRIA. were cut in the soft clay, at the bottom of the tablet there is a scale which we know from another monument of the same kind to have been originally io'8 inches in length, i.e. the Babylonian half- cubit or span. By far the larger part of the field, however, is occupied by an irregular figure in which the trace of a fortified wall may be easily recognised. When these monuments were first brought to France this statue was supposed to be that of an architect. When the inscriptions were interpreted, however, this opinion had to be modified in some degree. They were found to contain the same royal title as the other figure of similar style and material discovered by M. de Sarzec on the same spot, the title, namely, of the individual whom archaeologists have at present agreed to call Gudea. 1 It therefore seems to represent that prince in the character of an architect, as the constructor of the building in which his statues were placed as a sacred deposit. Must we take it to be the plan of his royal city as a whole, or only of his palace ? It is difficult to answer this question, especially while no precise information has been obtained from the inscrip- tions, whose interpretation presents many difficulties. There can, however, be no doubt that the engraver has given us a plan according to his lights of a wall strengthened by flanking towers, of which those with the boldest salience guard the six passages into the interior. We find a still more simple plan upon an Assyrian monument of much later date, namely, upon the armour of beaten bronze that formerly protected the gates of Balawat. In this example (Fig. 154) the doorways, the angles, and the centres of the two longer curtains are strengthened by towers. The way in which the sculptor has endeavoured to suggest the crenellations shows that these plans are not drawn on the same principal as ours ; there is no section taken at the junction 1 M. J. HALEVY disputes this reading of the word. As we are unable to discuss the question, we must refer our readers to his observations (Les Monuments Chaldeens et la Question de Sitmir et d'Accad] in the Comptes rendits de V Acadcinie des Inscriptions, 1882, p. 107. M. Halevy believes it should be read as the name of the prince Nabou or Nebo. The question is only of secondary importance, but M. Halevy enlarges its scope by reopening the whole matter of debate between himself and M. Oppert as to the true character of what Assyriologists call the Sumerian language and written character. The Comptes rendus only gives a summary of the paper. The same volume contains a resume of M. Oppert's reply (1882, p. 123 : Inscriptions de Gudeit, et seq).