Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/218

 186 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. Part I. Mugheyr and other cities of Bcnbylonia are the remains of a Turanian peoi)le Avlio always respected their dead, and paid especial attention to the ]n-eservation of their bodies. The i)yramid at Nhuroud seems to have been explored with sufficient care to enable us to affirm that no stairs or inclined plane led to its summit, and without these it certainly was not one of those observatory temples before alluded to. Still it is so singular to have one monument, and one only, of its class, that it is difficult to form a satisfactory opinion on the subject. It stands at the north-west angle of the mound, and measures 107 ft. each way ; its base, 30 ft. in height, is composed of beautiful stone masonry, ornamented by buttresses and offsets, above which the wall Jj'^ 81. Sacred Symbolic Tree of the Assyrians. (From Lord Aberdeeirs Bbick «toiie.) was continued perpendicularly in brickwork. In the 'centre of the building, and on the level of the base or terrace, a long vaulted gallery or tunnel was discovered, but it contained no clue to the destination of the l)uildin<j'. The whoFe now rises to a height of al)Out 120 ft. from the plain, and is composed of sun-dried bricks, with courses of kiln-burnt bricks between them, at certain intervals towards the summit, which render it |)robable that it originally was not a ])yramid in the usual sense of the term, but a square tower, rising in three or four stories, each less than the- lower one, as in the traditional temple of Belus at Babylon, or like the summit of the obelisk rei)resented in the woodcut (No. 82), which most probably is a monolithic reproduction of such a sepulchral tower as this, rather than an obelisk like those of Egypt. Other ol)elisks have since been discovered, some of Avhich look even more like miniature models of structural buildings than this one does. Till further information is <)l)tained, it will hardly be possible to say much that is satisfactory with regard to either the tombs, tem])les, or minor :iii1 i(|uiti('s of the Assyrian people. Their architecture was essentially Palatial — as'that of the Greeks was Tem])lar — and to that iiloue our remarks might almost be confined. Fortunately, however,