Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/74

56 often of enormous extent; the various courts, halls, corridors, and chambers of the Palace of Sennacherib, which surmounted the great platform at Nineveh, covered an area of over ten acres. The palaces were usually one-storied. The walls, constructed chiefly of dried brick, were immensely thick and heavy. The rooms and galleries were plastered with stucco, or panelled with precious woods, or lined with enamelled bricks. The main halls, however, and the great open courts were faced with slabs of alabaster, covered with sculptures and inscriptions, the illustrated narrative of the wars and labors of the monarch. There were two miles of such sculptured panelling at Koyunjik. At the portals of the palace, to guard the approach, were stationed the colossal human-headed bulls.

An important adjunct of the palace was the temple, a copy of the tower-temples of the Chaldæans. Its position is marked at present by a lofty conical mound rising amidst and overlooking the palace ruins.

Upon the decay of the Assyrian palaces, the material forming the upper part of the thick walls completely buried and protected all the lower portion of the structure. In this way their sculptures and inscriptions have been preserved through so many centuries, till brought to light by the recent excavations of French and English antiquarians.