Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/182

 150 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. Part I. CHAPTER II. CHALDEAX TEMPLES. CHRONOLOGY. DATES. Nimrod b. r. 2234? Urukh. Bowariyeh, Wurka .... 209.3 llgi 2070 C'liedorlaomer 1976 Isini Dagon 18.50 DATES. Shamas Vul. Kaleh Sherghat. . B. c. 1800 Sill Sliada. Wuswus? .1700 Sur Sin 1660 Purna Puryas 1600 Arab conquerors 1500?' ALREADY the names of fifteen or sixteen kings belonging to these old dynasties have been recovered, and the remains of some ten or twelve temples have been identified as founded by them ; but unfortunately none of these are in a sufiiciently perfect state to afford any certainty as to their being entirely of this age, and all are in such a state of ruin that, making use of all the information we possess, we cannot yet properly restore a temple of the old Chal- dean epoch. Notwithstanding this, it is a great gain to the history of archi- tecture to have obtained so much knowledge as we have of temples, which were only known to us before from the vague descriptions of the Greeks, and which are the earliest forms of a tyjje of temples found afterwards continually cropping up in the East, It would be contrary to all experience to suppose that a people of Turanian origin should be without temitles of some sort, but, except the description by the Greeks of the temple or tomb of Belus, we have nothing to guide us. We have now a fair idea of what the general out- line of their temples was, and even if we cannot trace their origin, we can at least follow their descendants. There seems now no doubt but that many, perhai)s most, of the BuddhLst forms of architecture in India and further eastward, were derived from the banks of the Euphrates. Many of the links are still wanting; but it is something to know that the Birs Nimroud is the type which two thousand years afterwards was copied at Pagalm in Burmah, and Boro Buddor in ' Tlif clirouolo^y hero yiven is hasod on (lie various papers conununicaU'tl by Sir llniry Rawliiison to the "Journal of llif lioyal Asiatic Soriety," vol. x. et .-eq., and to the " AlhenaMini " journal. The whole has been abstracted and con- liensed in his brother's "Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World"; from which work the tables here given are taken in an abridged form.