Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/237

 Biv. li. tu. V. INVENTION OF THE ARCH. 205 Nos. 32 and 33) were covered Avith semicircular vaults, though these have now disappeared. ^ In Ethiopia Mr, Hoskins found stone arclies vaulting the roofs of the porches to the pyramids, perfect in construc- tion, and, what is still more singular, showing both circular and pointed forms {ante, p. 141). These, as before remarked, are probably of the time of Tirhakah, or at all events not earlier than the age of Solomon, nor later than that of Cambyses. In the ase of Psammeticus we have several stone arches in the neighborhood of the pyra- mids ; one, in a tomb at Saccara, has been fre- quentlv drawn ; but one of the most instructive gg. section of Tomb near ^ *■. ,T ii/-^i iri in the Pyramids of Gizeh. IS that m a tomb discovered by Colonel Campbell (Woodcut No. 98), showing a very primitive form of an arch com- posed of 3 stones only, and above which is another arch of regular con- struction of 4 courses. _, ^H In his researches at Nimroud, Layard. dis- covered vaulted drains and chambers below the north-west and south- east edifices which were consequently as old as VjW^J the 8th or 9th century li before our era, and con- temporary with those in the pyramids of Meroe. ( They were of both cir- v W cular and pointed forms, "-^v, and built apparently J^ with great care and at- tention to the principles of the arch (Woodcut No. 99). The great discovery of this class is that of the city gates at Khors- abad, which, as men- tioned at p. 175, were sj)anned by arches of semicircular form, so perfect both in construction and in the mode in which they were ornamented, as to prove that in the time of Sargon '.rii;,, .'"y.?" ■ aulted Diain beiieatli ihe South-east Palace at Nimroud. 1 " Manners and Customs of the Egyptians," vol. iii. p. 203.