Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/97

 WESTERN ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE. 39 receding terraces, and each of different colored glazed bricks. A walled inclosure surrounded the whole structure. The angles of these temples were made to face the cardinal points, in contrast to the Egyptian pyramids, whose sides were so placed. The attempts of the Babylonians to build a tower which should " reach to heaven " (Gen. xi. 4), may be referred to here, and it is a fact worth noting that in Western Asia and Egypt, countries both remarkable for their dulness and sameness of aspect, man should have attempted his highest flights of audacity in the way of artificial elevations. THE SECOND OR ASSYRIAN PERIOD was a palace-huilding epoch, and terminated with the destruction of Babylon by Cyrus, b.c. 539. The principal remains are the palaces at Nineveh (or Koyunjik), Nimroud, and Khorsabad. The Palace of Sargon, Khorsabad (b.c. 722-705), is the best example of the general type, and has been the most completely studied by means of systematic excavations, chiefly by Place. It was erected about nine miles north-north-east of the ancient city of Nineveh, and with its various courts, chambers, and corridors is supposed to have occupied an area of 25 acres. As in all Assyrian palaces, it was raised upon a terrace or platform of brickwork faced with stone, 46 feet above the plain, from which it was reached by means of broad stairways and sloping planes or ramps. The palace contained three distinct groups of apartments, corresponding to the divisions of any palatial residence of modern Persia, Turkey, or India, viz, : — (a.) The Seraglio, including the palace proper, the men's apartments, and the reception rooms for visitors, in all containing 10 courts, and no less than 60 rooms or passages; (h.) the Harem, with the private apartments of the prince and his family ; and {c.) the Khan or service chambers, arranged round an immense courtyard, having an area of about 2J acres, and form- ing the principal court of the palace. There was also a temple observatory on the western side of the platform. The great entrance portals on the south-east fa9ade led into the great court already mentioned. These portals formed probably the most impressive creations of Assyrian Architecture, and were rendered imposing by no fewer than ten human-headed winged bulls, 19 feet in height (No. 12 f, g, h), examples of which are now pre- served in the British Museum. In the principal apartments a sculptured dado of alabaster about 10 feet high, which seems to have been sometimes treated with color, lined the lower portions of the walls, above which was a continuous frieze of colored and glazed brickwork. Conjectural restorations have been made by various authorities (No. 12 b).