Читать книгу History of Ancient Art - Franz von Reber - Страница 10

Fig. 39.—Tomb of Mugheir.

The principle of the arch, though not extensively employed, was well understood and occasionally introduced in Assyria. From a small grave-chamber discovered at Mugheir, we may conclude that it was not known in the ancient Chaldæan period. The roofing was then effected by a gradual projection of the horizontal courses of bricks until the opposite sides nearly touched each other at the top of the gable thus formed. (Fig. 39.) It may perhaps be assumed that this manner of covering by the so-called false arch and vault was only employed for very narrow spaces, while larger rooms were more naturally ceiled by wooden beams. The ruins of Warka, though they do not give a very clear understanding of the fortifications of ancient Chaldæa, at least show that the city walls were not necessarily square, as had been concluded from the testimony of ancient writers, but, as in this case, followed the irregular outline of the city.

The political history of Chaldæa was from the earliest times greatly disturbed by internal divisions. At first the city Nipur, celebrated for its worship of Bel, appears to have been the most important place, at least of Southern Chaldæa. To this followed Ur or Hur, the city worshipping Hurki or Sin, then Nisin or Carrac, and, finally, Larsa, the present Senkereh. Upper Chaldæan Babylon, originally Ca-dimirra, does not seem to have become the only capital until the age of King Cammurabi, about 1500 B.C. A hundred years later Northern Mesopotamia, Assyria, began to gain predominance, and in the thirteenth century B.C. Babylon was conquered (for the first time?) by Tiglathi-Nin, a son of King Salmaneser of Assyria. Chaldæa soon regained its independence, but only to fall again into the power of the conqueror Tiglath-Pileser, and to remain for five centuries subjugated to Nineveh. The attempts to throw off this yoke of Assyrian authority were in vain; even the uprising under the bold Merodach-Baladan, 731 B.C., was not of long duration, and finally led to the depopulation and total destruction of the prominent Chaldæan cities by Sennacherib. The Assyrian Esar-haddon rebuilt Babylon; but it did not recover its ancient importance until the Satrap Nabopolassar revolted from his allegiance, and, with the help of the Medes, made an end of the kingdom of Nineveh; and until his son Nebuchadnezzar, after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., reduced even distant Egypt to vassalage, thus taking into possession the full heritage of the Assyrian empire in both south and west.

Fig. 40.—Bors-Nimrud. Temple-terrace of Borsippa.

Fig. 41.—Plan and Elevation of the Temple at Borsippa. (From Oppert’s Measurements.)

Though the subjugation of the land by Assyria had not been without effect upon the civilization of Chaldæa, the general character of Babylonian art remained much the same through all these political changes. The last king, Nabonetos, could complete the temple of Ur, which Urukh had founded seventeen centuries before, as though there had been no interruption in the work. The terraced ruins show that there was no great difference in the architectural treatment of ages so removed. Other city ruins show such an intermixture of ancient Chaldæan and Babylonian walls that their date can be determined only by inscriptions or by stamps upon the bricks. The earlier remains are predominant in Mugheir, Warka, and Abou-Sharein; but the later capital of the country, Babylon, the city of Nebuchadnezzar, is known almost exclusively by the imposing structures of the modern kingdom. Greek antiquity, up to the time of Alexander, was acquainted with this city of wonders only by fables. Even the explicit description of Herodotos is in great degree mythical, especially his astonishing account of the city walls: 480 stadia (96.557 m.) in length, 200 ells (100 m.) high, and 50 ells (25 m.) broad. The ruins have also proved the account of the famed hundred gates of the city walls, and the square network of straight streets which ran from these, to be hyperbolical. Such immense masses of masonry would, as Layard has maintained, certainly have left heaps of rubbish; and, in fact, the ruins of a much smaller city enclosure have been traced. The irregular orientation of the palace plan is also incompatible with the conception that the city was divided up into squares with the regularity of a chess-board. The traditional account that the enormous terraced temple of Bel was built on the borders of the stream opposite the palace structures is certainly incorrect; for, while these latter are still represented by extensive brick ruins, there is not a trace upon the other bank, the supposed site, of massive terraces which could not possibly have so entirely disappeared. Nor could the stream have swept away so colossal a building; for a little north of Hillah, in the immediate vicinity of the spot where Herodotos describes the temple of Bel, there have been found the remains of a small Mylitta temple, which would have offered almost no resistance to an inundation. Yet Herodotos undoubtedly related, besides his fables, much that was correct about Babylon. His account of the temple of Bel seems only questionable in so far as the site is concerned; the rest of his description agrees perfectly with ruins which have been found about eleven kilometers westward, and are known by the name Bors-Nimrud. (Fig. 40.) The temple thus could not have belonged to the city proper of Babylon; and inscriptions mention the place as Borsippa, spoken of by Greek writers as a separate town, which could at best be regarded as a distant suburb of the extended Babylon. The immense hill of rubbish standing entirely isolated in the desert has a lower circumference of 685 m. This dimension agrees tolerably well with the six stadia given by Herodotos as the measure of the first step of the terraced pyramid. The regularly diminished seven steps, the “towers” of Herodotos, 7.5 m. high, reaching altogether a total altitude of 75 m., rose from a square substructure with a side of two stadia (180 m.) and a height of 22.5 m. The diagonals of these different terraces were not directly above one another, the steps being 9 m. broad in front and only 3.9 m. broad behind, while the sides were equal—6.3 m. This peculiarity of the ruin agrees with the flights of stairs described by Herodotos, which, notwithstanding the analogy of the palace temple of Kisr-Sargon, may here naturally be supposed to have been upon the front, where the terraces were sufficiently broad for this purpose. Fig. 41 is an attempt to restore the chief lines of the structure by means of the dimensions given by Oppert. Upon the summit of this terraced pyramid stood the necessarily small temple, which, according to Herodotos, contained a spacious couch and a golden table, but no statue of the deity. The sides of the terraces are directed to the cardinal points of the compass, as was the case also with the ancient Chaldæan temple of Ur; and, as at Ur, inscribed cylinders were here walled in at the angles. These relate that Nebuchadnezzar had magnificently completed the structure—“the temple-pyramid of the seven spheres, the wonder of Borsippa,” begun by a former king. Rawlinson and Oppert have concluded, from the remains of glazed bricks of different colors, that each of the seven terraces was dedicated to one of the seven planets of the ancients, and was characterized by its color—the upper, gold; the second, silver; the next, red, blue, yellow, white; and the lowest, black—according to the hues assigned to the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. The lowest terrace has a panelled architectural treatment similar to that noticed in the ruins at Warka and the palace temple at Kisr-Sargon. It is probable that these high terraces in the flat plains of Mesopotamia were elevations which served the Chaldæan astronomers for their celebrated observatories, as the pylons of temples upon the banks of the Nile were similarly used by the Egyptian priests. As Strabo speaks especially of an astronomical school at Borsippa, there can be little doubt that it was in some way connected with the terraced pyramid of the seven spheres.

The ruins of Hillah, Casr, Mudjelibeh, and Jumjuma give even less information concerning the palace buildings than the hill of Bors-Nimrud does concerning the form of the Chaldæan temple. These masses of masonry have for centuries served as quarries, and, as far distant as Bagdad, bricks, bearing the stamp of Nebuchadnezzar, betray that the material has been transported from the ruins of Babylon. Though the supply is by no means exhausted, this excavation has rendered much unrecognizable, and has so greatly increased the destruction that Layard held it impossible to discover a clew to the plan of the palace structure in the confusion of its overthrown and rifled rubbish. Oppert assumes the hill of Jumjuma, or Amran-ibn-Ali, as it is called from the Mohammedan chapel now standing upon it, to be the remains of the celebrated Hanging Gardens known as those of Semiramis, the wonder of the ancient world. But, plausible as his supposition is, it will hardly be possible to prove by existing remains the correctness of the description given by Diodoros of the Hanging Gardens, in itself more probable than the report followed by Strabo. Diodoros speaks of the Gardens as a terraced structure, the side of the square plan being about 120 m. in length, with separate steps which ascended from the land side, while upon the banks of the river a steep wall formed the back of the highest terrace, measuring 15 m. vertically, and closing the gardens towards the water. The steps were constructed by the help of thirteen thick parallel walls, each being higher than the one next below it. They left between them twelve narrow corridors, the ceilings of which, like those over Assyrian canals, were probably vaulted, and were then covered with rushes and bitumen, burnt brick pavements and lead sheathing, so as to bear the stairways which connected the different terraces, the reservoirs for cascades and fountains, and the imposed garden—earth with large trees, etc. Pumping works in the highest of these covered corridors supplied the garden with the necessary water from the Euphrates.

The ruined terraces of Mudjelibeh (Babil), avoided by the Arabs as the scene of the punishment of the fallen angels, are so completely overthrown that it is not possible to determine whether the remains are those of a temple or of a palace. It is probable that they had some connection with the great pyramidal tomb of Belus, a structure which may be assumed to have been much like the stepped pyramid of Nimrud to be described below. The monument of Mudjelibeh was destroyed as early as the time of Xerxes II. It has since served as a quarry for the neighboring cities Seleucia and Ctesiphon, and has been demolished to the lowest terrace.

The enormous river embankments and dikes which protected Lower Mesopotamia from flood and drought, though now only to be traced by inconsiderable remains, are of the greatest importance and interest. The neglect of these invaluable works, and of the sluices and irrigating canals in connection with them, has reduced to a deserted and pestilential swamp that most fertile land known to Herodotos—where once a harvest of two and three hundredfold was returned to the tiller of the soil. Though there are vestiges of some ancient bridges in the land, it is not possible to decide whether the account given by Diodoros of the great tunnel constructed by Semiramis be true or fabulous.

There seems to have been no reason for the erection of such tall edifices in the vastly extended Babylon as the three and four storied houses described by Herodotos, and no analogy to such a peculiarity exists in the great modern cities of the Orient. It must be remembered in this connection that the crumbling bricks to which the Mesopotamians were restricted would, in such high buildings, have demanded clumsily massive substructures and lower-story walls.

Though the ruins of Babylon have only recently been thoroughly examined, their existence has long been known. Benjamin of Tudela speaks of Bors-Nimrud as the Biblical Tower of Babel, and this local tradition has been handed down to the present day. The palace ruins of the great city have always been readily recognizable, and the one has been called Babel, the other Casr (palace), from time immemorial.

Fig. 42.—Plan of Babylon. (According to Rich.)

It is otherwise with the second great centre of Mesopotamia—Nineveh, the famed capital of the kingdom of Assyria, in the upper land of the great streams. As early as the beginning of this century, Carsten Niebuhr expressed the conviction that the remains of the overthrown city were to be sought among the hills of rubbish which lie opposite the present Mosul, beyond the Tigris; but the energetic Rich, who devoted so much time and labor to the barren ruins of Babylon, paid no attention to the site. Nineveh had entirely disappeared, and was only traditionally known from the Book of Jonah and from the legend of Sardanapalos. It was during two visits to Mosul, in the years 1840 and 1842, that the eminent English traveller and statesman Sir A. H. Layard conceived the plan of undertaking investigations in the vicinity. He expressed his convictions at the time to the French consul, M. P. E. Botta, and in 1843 that gentleman commenced the excavation of the hill Coyundjic, which lay next to Mosul. The natives, becoming aware of the nature of the search, directed his attention to the hill of Corsabad, situated at a distance of about twenty-five kilometers from Mosul; the excavations were removed thither, and carried on with most gratifying results. A few days’ digging laid bare a number of walls reveted with huge slabs of alabaster. The wonderful sculptures in relief upon these excited redoubled activity, and soon entire chambers of the palace structure were freed from the overthrown rubbish which had covered it for well-nigh three thousand years. The French government purchased the entire village of Corsabad: in M. V. Place was provided a worthy successor to M. Botta. The inscriptions discovered have proved the ruins to be those of a palace founded by Sargon about 710 B.C. in the city Kisr-Sargon or Dur-Sargina.

In the year 1845, Layard obtained, through Sir Stratford Canning, then ambassador to Turkey, the necessary means for the English government to take part in the promising undertaking. He at first directed his attention to Nimrud, a hill of ruins about a day’s journey south of Mosul, the great size of which promised the existence of important remains. An immense terrace platform was there found to have supported a number of palaces, several of which were excavated, the more valuable sculptures and other objects of interest being transported to the British Museum. At Nimrud were discovered the most ancient and the most modern of Assyrian buildings known—namely, the northwestern palace, temple, and tower built by Assur-nazi-pal shortly after 885 B.C., as well as the Temple of Assur-ebil-ili, presumably the last Assyrian king, dating to about 610 B.C. Besides these, there were the southeastern and central palaces built by Shalmaneser II. after 860, the latter having been restored by Tiglath-pileser II., from 745 to 727, as Sargon rebuilt the northwestern palace after 722; and, finally, there was the southwestern palace of Esar-haddon, from 681 to 668 B.C. The city itself (Calah) corresponded in grandeur and extent with the palace terrace. It was founded by Shalmaneser, and long rivalled Nineveh, especially after its reconstruction by Assur-nazi-pal.

Fig. 43.—Plan of Nineveh.

It is now beyond a doubt that the chief capital of the country is buried beneath the hills of Coyundjic and Nebbi-Jonas, the latter so called from a Mohammedan chapel to the prophet Jonah which traditionally marks the site of Nineveh. Both these mounds of ruins were examined by Layard. In the southwestern palace of Coyundjic, built by Assur-bani-pal, from 668 to 626 B.C., was discovered the most extensive among these dwellings of Oriental despots. The most elaborate of Assyrian palaces was the northern one of this site, built by Assur-bani-pal about 640 B.C., a monarch who devoted certain chambers of the southwestern palace, originally erected by his grandfather, to the reception of inscribed clay tablets—an inexhaustible wealth for the study of Assyrian history, of which hardly a third part seems to have been recovered intact. In Nebbi-Jonas were found traces of the palaces of Vulnirari III., from 812 to 783; of Sennacherib, from 705 to 681; and of Esar-haddon, from 681 to 668 B.C. The line of the city walls, still recognizable among the hills of rubbish, is shown by the plan at Fig. 43. These fortifications could hardly have enclosed the entire city, and it is probable that only the inner town, with the palaces and public buildings, was thus protected, and that the dwelling-houses of the many inhabitants formed suburbs which extended far around the enclosed centre, gradually losing themselves in gardens and groves of date-trees, as is the case with modern capitals of the East. The comparatively small walls of Babylon, at variance with the report given by Herodotos, lead to the same conclusion in regard to that city.

The ruins of Calah-Shergat, situated about 100 kilometers down the stream from Nineveh, are identified with Assur, the oldest capital of the land, which maintained its pre-eminence until Nineveh, in the fourteenth century B.C., became the great centre of power. Reson is thought to be recognized in the ruins of Selamiyeh, lying between Nimrud and Nineveh, and Erbil in Arbola. These sites have not been sufficiently examined to be of direct importance in the history of art.

Fig. 44.—Palace of Kisr-Sargon, Corsabad.

Fig. 45.—Ornamented Pavement from the Northern Palace of Coyundjic.

It is plain from the ruins already mentioned that the dwellings of the kings took the most prominent place among the creations of Assyrian architecture. The despotic element had in Mesopotamia the same superiority as the hierarchy in Egypt: in the former country the palace was as much in the foreground as was the temple in the latter. In ancient Chaldæa the two elements, and consequently the two classes of monuments, were more equally represented. Still, in most points of view, the relation of Chaldæan and Assyrian architecture is very close, and the differences arose chiefly from the superior material at the builders’ disposal in Upper Mesopotamia. The terraces of Assyria, like those of Chaldæa, were solidly constructed of sun-dried bricks and stamped earth, but the neighboring mountains provided stone for the complete revetment of these masses with quarried blocks. Carefully hewn slabs existed upon the terrace platform of Sargon’s palace, and upon the substructure of the pyramid of Nimrud, while there was rough Cyclopean stone-work employed in the construction of the city walls at Kisr-Sargon. The facing of brightly glazed tiles and stucco-paintings, universal in Chaldæa, is restricted upon Assyrian masonry of the same brick materials to the upper part of the wall, the lower half being sheathed and protected by sculptured slabs of alabaster. The appearance of the whole gained greatly by this change, the revetment of reliefs in place of the painted figures giving a more imposing and durable character to the walls. The palace architecture of Assyria is best exemplified by the plan of the royal dwelling of Kisr-Sargon (Fig. 44), the isolated position and clear disposition of which are adapted to show the general character of these structures. The platform terrace consisted of two divisions, the broader (P) being inside the limits of the city fortifications, while the remainder (T) projected beyond them. A double flight of steps (A) led to the chief portal (B), ornamented by gigantic winged human-headed bulls, which here not only stood on the sides of the passage itself, as at all principal entrances, but laterally upon the front walls, within and without. These figures are among the most characteristic creations of Assyrian art; they will be treated more in detail in the following consideration of the sculpture of the country. The triple gateway opened into the first and largest enclosed court (C). Upon the left of this, one narrow passage led to the chambers of the harem, which were ranged around six smaller courts (D to H). Upon the right of the first enclosure were the household offices (J), with eight courts and numerous halls, magazines, kitchens, cellars, stables, etc. The side opposite the chief entrance was formed by the private apartments of the monarch (M) and by the great hall of the palace—a group of chambers not presenting its chief front to the first court (C), with which it was connected only by subordinate entrances—but to a second enclosure of almost equal extent (K), which may be regarded as the chief open space of the royal dwelling. An inclined ascent (R) led to the right wing of the inner terrace, by which the king, approaching in a chariot or borne by attendants in a sedan-chair, could enter his seraglio without passing the first court (C) or the entrance to the household offices (J). The encroaching line of the city wall (P) made it impossible for the portal to the second court (S) to be arranged in the central axis of that enclosure; but strict symmetry of plan was not adopted even when there were no such obstacles. The inner apartments of the king were entered by a magnificent triple gateway (L) from the court of the seraglio; these were, in certain measure, regularly planned, being so grouped around a smaller court (M) that oblong halls, as long as this was square, were upon three of its sides. The hall upon the south opens into a number of intricate chambers, probably used as baths, sleeping-apartments, and rooms for the immediate body-guards of the king and for the temporary families of the harem. Upon the north a wing was added to the building, projecting almost to the outer border of the terrace, and dividing this (T) into a northern and a western court. The addition was the most richly ornamented portion of the entire palace; it was probably here that the halls of reception were placed. The walls of other parts of the seraglio were reveted upon their lower part with sculptured slabs of alabaster; but this treatment was not elsewhere so freely applied, nor was it as richly decorated as in this northwestern wing. In the first hall, which is 35 m. long and 10 m. broad, the walls are ornamented with continuous scenes representing, as in a procession, the homage and punishment of prisoners-of-war. In other rooms and in smaller courts these reliefs, divided by a band of cuneiform inscriptions, are of smaller dimensions and less pretentious execution, though of marked interest as forming, with their copious inscriptions, chronicles of historical events.

The spacious terrace at the west has in its centre an oblong hall (N), generally supposed to be the temple or chapel of the palace, but which may with more probability be considered as a hall of state. The scanty remains of this structure make a sure determination of its purpose impossible. They consist chiefly of the foundations of solid unburnt brick masonry, faced with slabs of black basalt. The cornice of this substructure is of gray limestone, in form much resembling the characteristic scotia of Egyptian architecture. (Fig. 46.)

A small terraced pyramid (O) at the southwest is a more remarkable structure. Four of its steps, with their facing of white, black, orange, and blue enamelled tiles, are still remaining. These lead, from analogy with the pyramid of Borsippa, to the assumption of three further steps, tiled with the red, silver, and gold assigned to the remaining planets. The vertical panelling of the sides is somewhat similar to that of the remains at Warka; it is not here restricted to the walls of the lower terrace, like that upon the ruins of Mugheir and Borsippa. The square platform at the top of the terraces, the side of which could have measured little more than 10 m., received either an altar or a small cella, not longer than 6 m. Ascent to the top of the pyramid was provided by an inclined plane, which wound from step to step in a rectangular spiral. The destination of the pyramid as the palace chapel seems reasonably certain, from its similarity to other terraced temples of Assyria.

Fig. 46.—Cornice of the Temple Substructure at Corsabad.

The palaces hitherto discovered show the greatest freedom of detailed arrangement. The variations among the plans may be illustrated by a comparison of those of the northwestern palace of Nimrud (Fig. 47), the palace of Esarhaddon (Fig. 49), and of that of Sennacherib at Coyundjic. The methods of construction adopted for their erection are more similar. All have walls built of burnt or unburnt brick and of stamped clay; those of the larger chambers are reveted in their lower half with slabs of alabaster or with brightly enamelled tiles, and ornamented by paintings upon stucco above. All the principal halls are so narrow in proportion to their length as to resemble corridors—a peculiarity arising from technical difficulties of ceiling.

Fig. 47.—Plan of the Northwestern Palace of Nimrud.

The manner of lighting and roofing adopted in Assyrian palaces is not directly evident from the existing remains; none of the walls, the highest of which reaches 9 m. above the ground, showing traces of any window-like openings. Some authorities assume that all the light of the interior was admitted through the doors. That this may, in some instances, have been barely possible is evident from the plan of Sargon’s palace at Corsabad (Fig. 44), where the principal chambers were entered directly from the open courts, or, in exceptional instances, were preceded by narrow ante-rooms which could not greatly have interfered with the light. But it is plain from the plan of the northwestern Palace of Nimrud (Fig. 47) that twelve chambers in such unfavorable positions as those shown upon its eastern side could not have received the slightest light through the two narrow passages leading from the confined court. It is futile to deny the necessity of light and air for the dwellings of man; and theories which suppose these enormous spaces left in darkness, or unventilated and lighted artificially, are certainly untenable. Other scholars are of the opinion that light and air were procured through horizontal openings in the ceiling and roof; but this imperfect and unpractical arrangement is particularly ill adapted for inhabited rooms, and is rendered extremely improbable by the fact that upon the pavements there did not exist the slightest arrangement for leading off the water which must have fallen upon them had the roof been an inefficient shelter. The floors were rarely of stone slabs, like the carved fragments shown in Fig. 45, and in other places the sun-dried bricks would have been rapidly reduced to mud by the furious rain-storms of Mesopotamia.

Fig. 48.—Relief from Coyundjic.

The present condition of the ruins, the walls of which nowhere rise to the full height of the chambers, does not, however, exclude the possibility of openings for light having existed just beneath the ceiling. The form of such orifices cannot surely be determined; high windows could not have existed, and there must have been low openings in the top of the wall, separated by piers, between which stood small columns, as is evident from a relief of Coyundjic, given in Fig. 48 to serve as an argument for this manner of illumination. Light and air could thus have been freely admitted, without inconvenience to the dwellers within. The high position of the apertures, immediately under the somewhat projecting roof, prevented the entrance of rain, and shut off the interior from the view of those without, just as this same manner of lighting to-day protects the harems of the East. The small shafts, which were introduced as supports between these windows, appear to have been the only representatives of columnar architecture in the Assyrian palace. If columns had been used, in their customary function, as upholders of the roof—as members which bore an important entablature—some traces of these would certainly have been preserved; their material could hardly have been more perishable than the sun-dried brick of the walls. The entire arrangement of plan shows that their assistance was not relied upon. The chambers were disproportionately narrow, plainly to render it possible to cover them without the introduction of intermediate supports. The beauty and fitness of the corridor-like spaces were so sacrificed to this narrowness that its universal appearance can be regarded only as a constructive necessity. It is well illustrated by the cramped principal hall of the palace of Esar-haddon at Nimrud (Fig. 49), where a greater width than that permitted by the span of ceiling timbers was only to be obtained by the erection of a division wall to provide a subsidiary support for the beams. So helpless a make-shift, destroying the unity and grandeur of the hall, could have been adopted only in entire ignorance of the opening and supporting element of the column, apparently never recognized in Assyria.

Fig. 49.—Plan of the Palace of Esar-haddon at Nimrud.

Fig. 50.—Various Forms of Capitals and Bases, from Assyrian Reliefs.

The form of the small columns, which stood in the openings allowed for light in the upper walls, can be approximately determined from the representations upon reliefs. The shafts were cylindrical, and probably without flutings; they had a roundlet, or at least a projecting fillet, at either end. The base consisted solely of a high tore, sometimes notched upon the top, or placed upon the back of a striding lion. (Fig. 50.) The most common form of the capitals was a peculiar conjunction of two spiral scrolls, similar to a doubled Ionic capital, with an echinos-like roundlet beneath and a stepped abacus above. It is hardly to be doubted that this was the prototype of the Ionic capital, although it cannot be determined from the reliefs whether a lateral roll corresponded to the volute of the front, or whether the helix was repeated upon all four sides, as is the case with the capitals of Persian columns. The small scale of the representations upon reliefs, and their careless execution, do not permit a sure understanding of any part of the capitals. A table (Fig. 51) upon a relief of Coyundjic better determines the form of the volutes; it has distinct spirals in place of the rosettes, wrongly shown by Layard’s drawing.[D] There is reason to suppose that the double helix was not the primitive and normal form of the Assyrian capital, but was rather an abbreviation of the leaved calyx so frequently met with in Phœnicia, Palestine, and Cyprus, and that the rolled ends of the leaves, shown by two of the examples in Fig. 50, originally suggested the volutes of the capital and the various spiral forms occurring upon carved Assyrian furniture, as in Fig. 81. The question will be considered more at length in the section upon Syrian architecture.

The columns of Assyria were employed only in this subordinate position, and the dimensions and shape of larger enclosed spaces were dependent upon the limited span of the wooden ceiling beams. Assyrian palaces were, in these respects, unable to fulfil the demands of a monumental architecture. It can only be surmised how roof and ceiling were constructed in detail. The beams were naturally so placed as to require the least possible length to span the clear width; the sinking in the middle, to which the elastic trunks of palm-trees so much inclined, and the accumulation of water in the hollow thereby formed, were thus avoided as well as might be. The constructive details of the roof-platform are not surely known; it is probable that a layer of clay and earth was placed upon the beams, being rolled down compactly after every rain. The exterior representation of roof and ceiling, the wall entablature, may have consisted of a painted wooden sheathing, bearing ornaments of the character displayed by the pavement. (Fig. 45.) It was divided, like the Egyptian entablature, into two parts; in neither case was there a marked distinction between roof and ceiling. The imitations of building-fronts upon reliefs make it probable that stepped battlements rose above the main cornice.

Fig. 51.—Table upon an Assyrian Relief.

Fig. 52.—Mouth of a Channel under the

Northwestern Palace, Nimrud. Fig. 53.—Channel under the Southeastern Palace, Nimrud.

The fundamental principles of vaulted construction, as of columnar architecture, were known in Assyria, but neither the column nor the arch was worthily recognized and developed into an important feature capable of exercising an influence upon the extent or form of the enclosed spaces. The palace terraces were pierced by narrow vaulted channels, still to be traced among the ruins. This was the case with the most ancient structure of Assyria, the northwestern palace of Nimrud. (Fig. 52.) Though it cannot be proved that the Assyrians were the original inventors of the arch of wedge-shaped stones, there are certainly no earlier instances of this manner of building known than those of that country. Round arch barrel-vaults were not exclusively used for such channels; an ogive appears upon the same terrace of Nimrud, in the somewhat later southeastern palace. (Fig. 53.) Though the key-stone of the latter is undeveloped, the vault is yet built upon the principle of the Gothic pointed arch. It is not impossible that this form may have descended in uninterrupted tradition from Mesopotamia to the Arabs, being brought by them to Europe, where, effecting a change in the round Romanesque arch, it exercised a decisive influence in the development of mediæval manners of building. The bricks of these vaulted Assyrian channels are carefully moulded to the more or less marked wedge-form determined by the size of the arch—a greater refinement than is practised by modern masons, who use only rectangular bricks, effecting the curve by the wedge-shape of the mortar-joint. Yet, perfected as vaulted construction appears in these channels, its application seems to have been almost restricted to them; Assyrian builders hesitated to apply vaulted ceilings to spaces of much greater span than gates and window apertures. Reliefs show arched portals alternating with horizontally covered openings; and in the fortification walls of Kisr-Sargon, the city adjoining the palace-ruins of Corsabad, traces of a barrel-vaulted entrance have been discovered where the arch, of 4.5 m. clear, rested upon the backs of the winged monsters referred to as the guardians of all important gateways. A vaulted corridor, considerably less in span, will be noticed at the temple pyramid of Nimrud. Among the numerous palace chambers remaining, only a few narrow cells show traces of vaults; the opinion of some recent investigators, that the customary horizontal ceilings of smaller rooms were surmounted by cupolas of beaten earth, does not appear plausible.

Fig. 54.—Restoration of an Assyrian Palace.

From the chief points gained by this consideration, it is evident that the restoration given in Fig. 54, a variation of the reconstruction by Layard and Fergusson, cannot greatly misrepresent the once existing structures. The Assyrian palace was, upon the whole, a more satisfactory building than the Egyptian temple. The outlines and masses of its composition were grand; it was richly ornamented, perhaps even overladen, with sculptured and colored decoration. The massive and unpierced walls of the lower half bore a kind of open loggia, consisting of light columns between powerful piers which were fully capable of upholding the ceiling. The entire edifice being elevated upon a terrace, upper stories were not necessary to secure an imposing height. The existence of one lower story alone is indicated by the ruins; no large staircases, or other means of ascent to an upper floor, were provided. The apparent duplication of the stories of houses upon reliefs is owing to a fault of perspective common to the primitive representations of all nations: things are shown as above and upon, instead of behind and beyond, one another. The ground-chambers, of which sixty-eight have been counted in the Palace of Sennacherib at Coyundjic, and over two hundred in the Palace of Sargon, were surely ample in number and extent.

Fig. 55.—Terraced Pyramid. Relief from Coyundjic.

Fig. 56.—Plan and Section of the Terraced Pyramid of Nimrud. 1. Vaulted Corridor. 2. Modern Shafts. 3. Revetment Wall of Cut Stone. 5. Solid Brick Masonry. 6. Great Palace Terrace. 7. Temple.

Fig. 57.—Relief from the Northern Palace of Coyundjic.

Though the royal dwellings of Assyria chiefly attract attention in considering the architecture of the country, there are also many remains of sacred buildings in the lands of the Upper Tigris. But we are acquainted only with those places of worship which stood in immediate connection with the palaces, no traces of edifices for general and popular worship having been discovered up to the present time. Even were we without knowledge of the ruins, it would be natural to suppose the temples of Assyria similar to those of Mesopotamia; that is to say, pyramidal terraces, with high lower stories. (Compare Fig. 41.) A relief from Coyundjic, the upper portion of which is unfortunately destroyed, confirms this view, showing a terraced structure of three or four steps situated upon a natural elevation. The lower terrace is decorated, like Chaldæan works of the kind, with pilasters in low-relief; before it are pylon towers. (Fig. 55.) This specifically Mesopotamian type is to be recognized in the most prominent ruins of Assyrian sacred architecture—namely, in the terraced pyramid which occupied one corner of the great palace platform of Nimrud. It is also to be observed in the more fragmentary remains at Kileh-Shergat, which time has buried beneath shapeless hills of rubbish, without entirely obliterating the original disposition. The ruins at this site have not been thoroughly investigated; those at Nimrud showed the lower part of the pyramid at least to have been solidly built of bricks, reveted with a wall of quarried stones. (Fig. 56.) In the height of the main palace terrace was a shaft, the purpose of which is uncertain, as it was without entrance, and empty; it is interesting in architectural respects from the admirably executed barrel-vault of brick masonry which formed its ceiling. The ruin, for the greater part destroyed, offered beyond this corridor but few peculiarities. The stone revetment has been almost entirely carried away, and every trace of the temple cella which must have surmounted these terraces, as it did those of Chaldæa, has disappeared. The better-preserved but much smaller terraced temple of the palace at Kisr-Sargon has already been mentioned. Two interesting reliefs show the general form of such cellas, though in these instances the structures represented are not raised upon artificial elevations. (Figs. 35 and 57.) They are small temples in antis, rectangular buildings, three sides of which are formed by walls; while, in the open fourth, two columns support the entablature and roof. In one case the ends of the walls upon each side of the columns are undecorated; in the other the pilasters, though without a base, are crowned with a member similar to the capitals of the columns. The simple entablature projects in an oblique line; it is terminated by stepped battlements, in which the Mesopotamian type of the terraced pyramid is repeated in outline and adopted as a merely decorative detail. Such temple cellas were erected not alone upon extensive terraces, but in the plain; perhaps, also, like the similar structures of Phœnicia, in the midst of sacred lakes. The reliefs given in the cuts show the chapels to have stood at the foot of natural elevations, as well as upon them. Another form of sanctuary, with gabled roof and lanceolate acroteria, is represented upon a relief of Corsabad. (Fig. 71.) The building remotely resembles a Hellenic peripteros. Its constructive peculiarities cannot well be understood from the relief, as these considerations were probably not clear to the sculptor himself. It is possible that the architectural form was one foreign to the country—perhaps the imitation of a temple in Southern Asia Minor. Another variety of these palace chapels appears upon the terrace of Nimrud, the forms there differing but slightly from those of the dwelling-chambers; the sacred cellas are distinguished only by the exclusively mythological character of the reliefs, and by the altars and offerings placed at the entrance. (Fig. 58.) It is possible, however, that these spaces were used as the dwellings of priests rather than as sanctuaries, especially as the two examples known are situated near the base of the great temple of Nimrud, being in this respect admirably adapted to the uses of the sacerdotal officers in the royal household.

Fig. 58.—Entrance to one of the so-called Temples, Nimrud.

The forms of Assyrian altars are illustrated by reliefs. (Figs. 35 and 57.) The rectangular shaft, at times furrowed, rests upon a plinth, and bears a projecting slab, bordered by stepped battlements. A tripod was found before the entrance to the so-called Temple of Nimrud (Fig. 58); and upon reliefs are represented fire-altars, upholding by a single support a basin for burnt sacrifices. These altars and the bronze tables for offerings were not treated as architectural details, but more resembled the chairs and thrones variously represented upon reliefs.