Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/409

 ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE THE PRINCIPAL TYPES. 381 According to the relief the tower itself rises upon a dome- shaped mound in front of which there are a large doorway and two curved ramps. From all that we know of Assyrian buildings of this kind we may be sure that the original of the picture was so placed. The form of the mound may be described as repro- ducing the extrados of a depressed arch. This is the only form on which flights of steps with a curve similar to that here shown could be constructed. The design of the steps in our plate corre- sponds exactly to that indicated more roughly by the sculptor ; no other means of affording convenient access to the base of the tower at least outside the mound could have been contrived. Two doors were pierced at the head of the steps through the large panels with which the lower stage of the tower itself was decorated, and from that point, so far as we can tell from the relief, the ascent was continued by means of internal staircases. The sculptor has only shown three stages, but unless the absence of anvthino- above has been caused by the mutilation of the slab j o> J we may suppose that he has voluntarily suppressed a fourth. 1 In any case the third story is too large to have formed the apex of the tower. The general proportions suggest at least one more stage for the support of the usual chapel. The latter we have restored as a timber structure covered with metal plates, skins, or coloured planks. The three stages immediately below the chapel we have decorated with painted imitations of panels, carried out either in fresco or glazed brick. As for the internal arrangements we know very little. The great doorway with which the mound itself is prefaced in the relief must have led to .some apartment worthy of its size and importance ; we have therefore pierced the mass in our section with a suite of several chambers. At the second story another doorway occurs ; it is much smaller and more simple, and the chamber to which it led must have been comparatively unimportant. In our Fig. 180 it is restored as the approach to the internal staircase. In order to vary the framework of our restorations and to show Assyrian architecture in as many aspects as possible, we have placed this temple within a fortified wall, like that of Khorsabad. Within a kind of bastion towards the left of the 1 The original of this relief has not been brought to Europe. We are therefore unable to decide whether Layard's draughtsman has accurately represented its condition or not.