Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/190

 158 BABYLONIA. Part I. making a total of 18 ft. 4 in.i The height of the cella is equal to the height of the basement, but this may be owing to the small size of the whole edifice, it being necessary to provide a chamber of a given dimension for the sepulchre. In the larger temples, it may be surmised that the height was divided into four nearly equal parts : one being given to the basement, one to the two next stories, one to the three u])per stories, and the fourth to the chamber on the^ summit. Thi« building is now called the tomb of Cyrus, and most probably was so, though copied from a form which we have just been describing as a temi)le. But it must be borne in mind that the most celebrated eam]ilc of this form is as often called the tomb as the temple of Belus,^ and among a Turanian people the tomb and the temple may be con- sidered as one and the same thing. Another peculiarity worth observing is that instead of the walled enclosure that surrounded the Birs Nimroud,^ we have here an open screen of pillars standing 14 feet apart, but certainly not part of a cloister, nor probably even sup})orting an entablature, being mere steles to mark the boundary of the sacred enclosure. The interest of this will be apparent when we come to speak of Buddhist art ; all that is required is to direct attention to it here. There is one other source from which we may hoj^e to obtain in- formation regarding these temi)les, and that is the bas-reliefs on the walls of the Assyrian palaces. They drcAV architecture, however, so badly, that it is necessary to be very guarded in considering such rejiresentations as more than suggestions ; but the annexed woodcut (No. 55) does seem to represent a four-storied temple, placed on a mound, with very tolerable correctness, and if the upper story had not been ))roken away the drawing might have given us a valuable hint as t(j the form and jnirposes of the cella, which wa sthe principal object of the erection. Its coloring, too, is gone ; but the certain remains of symbolical colors at Borsippa and Khorsabad confirm so completely the Greek accounts of the seven-colored walls of Ecbatana that, with the other indications of the same sort extant, that branch of the inquiry may be considered as complete. It is to be hoped that now that the thread is caught, it will be followed u]) till this form of temple is thoroughly investigated ; for to the ]ihiloso])hical student of architectural history few recent discoveries are of more interest. There hardly seems a doubt but that many tem- ples found further eastward are the direct lineal descendants of these ' There is a slight discrepancy in the measures, owing to the absence of frac- tions in the calculations. - It is called totnb Vjy Strabo, lib. xvi., and Diodorus, xvii. 112, 3; temple, He- rodotus, i. 181, Arrian, vii. 17, 2, Pliny, vi. 20. 3 See plan by Ker Porter, vol. ii. p. 323.