Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/95

 WESTERN ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE. 37 is a last reminiscence of the timber stockading which had originally served to keep up the tempered earth before the regular use of sun-dried bricks. In Asia Minor many of the buildings present stone forms borrowed from a timber type, and the influence of this tradition is better seen in the tombs of Lycia than in any other remains. An example of one of these at the British Museum has a double podium {cf. Glossary) upon which is placed a chest or sarcophagus crowned with a roof of pointed-arch form, the mortises and framing, including the pins, being copied from a wooden form. In Lycia many rock-cut tombs present flat and sloping roofs, in which unhewn timbers were copied ; and the last stage shows an Ionic fa9ade certainly developed from ihese carpentry forms (No. 41 f). The copying of timber forms in stone has also been traced in Egypt ; in India, where it was introduced by the Bactrian Greeks, between the second and third century B.C., and in Greece some- what earlier than in Lycia, in the seventh century B.C. It may, therefore, be admitted that a material from which a style is evolved continues for a period to have its influence even when another material is substituted. It was only, however, in the infancy of stone architecture that timber forms were adhered to ; for as soon as habit gave familiarity with the new material, the incongruities of such forms applied to stone structures were by degrees abandoned, and features suitable to the new material were evolved. 3. EXAMPLES. Western Asiatic Architecture can be divided into three tolerably distinct periods ; — - {a.) The first or Babylonian (Chaldaean) period (b.c. 4000 (?)- 1290). {b.) The second or Assyrian period (b.c. 1290-538). {c.) The third or Persian period (b.c. 538-333)- THE FIRST OR BABYLONIAN PERIOD was a temple-huilding epoch, the principal remains being the temple of Birs-Nimroud near Babylon, and the temple at Khorsabad. Colonel Rawlinson has shown by his investigations that the Temple of Birs-Nimroud was dedicated to the seven heavenly spheres. In Chaldaea every city had its " ziggurat " (holy mountain), surmounted by a richly decorated temple chamber, which served as a shrine and observatory from which astrological studies could be made (No. 12 a, c, d). These temples were several stories in height, constructed in