CHAPTER IV.
RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE.
§ 1.—Attempts to restore the Principal Types.
In spite of all our researches we have not succeeded in finding in the whole of Mesopotamia a real sepulchre, a tomb on which the talent of the architect has been lavished as well as the structural skill of the builder. The Chaldæans and Assyrians made greater efforts when they had to honour a god than when they were called upon to provide a lodging for their dead. Of all the structures they raised, their temples seem to have been the most ambitious in height and in grandeur of proportion though not in extent of ground covered. This the classic writers tell us, and their assertions are confirmed in more than one particular by documents written in the Assyrian language. We can also check their statements to some extent by the study of the monuments themselves or rather of their somewhat scanty remains.
We shall seek in vain for ruins that may be compared to those of the Egyptian sanctuaries. The nature of the materials employed in the valley of the Euphrates made the degradation of a building and the obliteration of its lines far more rapid than elsewhere. And yet in many cases the almost formless aspect of structures once so greatly admired, does not prevent those who know how to crossexamine them from restoring many of their former arrangements; and both in the bas-reliefs and in some very small monuments we find certain sculptured sketches that have been recognized as representing temples.
These sketches are very imperfect and very much abridged: the ruins themselves are confused; of the Greek and Assyrian texts some are short and vague, others excite our scepticism. Without wishing to deny the value of the methods employed or the importance of the results obtained, we can hardly believe that the certainty with which technical terms are translated is well founded. There are some of these terms which if they occurred in a Greek inscription would cause no little embarrassment by their purely special character, and that even to one who might unite in his single person the qualifications of a Greek scholar with those of an architect or sculptor. We hope, though we hardly expect to see our hope realized, that some day a Mesopotamian temple may be found in good preservation. Until then we cannot give to our restorations of such buildings anything approaching the accuracy or completeness so easily attained when the great religious edifices of Greece or Egypt are in question. We find none of those well defined elements, those clear and precise pieces of information which elsewhere allow us to obliterate the injuries worked by time and human enemies. The foot of every wall is heaped about with such formless masses of brick and brick dust, that it is almost impossible to make full explorations or to take exact measurements. One must be content with an approximation to the truth.
With the one exception of the staged tower at Khorsabad, we shall not attempt to give a single restoration in the proper sense of the word. Not that we mean to say that the different temple models given in our Plates [II]., [III]., and [IV]., and in our [Fig. 173], are creations of our fancy. No one of the four pretends to reconstruct one famous building more than another. They are abstract types, each representing, in its general features, one of the varieties into which Assyro-Chaldæan temples may be divided. The arrangements in which the originality of each type consists were only fixed by M. Chipiez after long researches. In each case he has taken for his point of departure either a Greek or Assyrian text, a sculptured relief, or facts gleaned by the examination of original sites; in most cases he has been able to supplement and correct the information gained from one of these sources by that from another. He has thus entered into the spirit of Mesopotamian architecture, and restored the chief forms it put on in its religious buildings according to time and district. He cannot say that all the details figured were found united, as they may be here, on a single building; but they are not inventions, no one of them is without authority, and the use to which they are put has been decided by the examination of actual remains. We may say the same of proportions. These are the result of study and of the collation of one ruin and one piece of evidence with another; they have not been taken from any single building. Finally there were certain details, such as the trace and elevation of the ramps, that were full of difficulty. M. Chipiez arrived at the solution finally adopted by an inductive process, by carefully weighing the obvious conditions of the problem and choosing those arrangements by which its requirements seemed most simply and conveniently met. In virtue of their general character M. Chipiez's restorations reach a high degree of probability. They may be compared, if we may use the expression, to those triumphs of historical synthesis in which no attempt is made to narrate events as they occurred and in all their details, but in which a whole people lives, and the character of a whole century is summed up, in a picture whose every line and colour is borrowed from reality.[451]
In spite of their apparent variety, all the buildings we shall describe in the present chapter may be referred to a single fundamental type. They are each formed of several cubic masses superimposed one upon another and diminishing in volume in proportion to their height in the monument. We have already explained how such a system came to be adopted.[452] It was determined by the limitations of the only material at the architect's disposal, and it had at least this advantage, that it enabled him to relieve the monotony of the Chaldæan plains with artificial mountains whose vast size and boldness of line were calculated to impress the minds of the people, and to give them a great idea of their master's power and of the majesty of the deities in whose honour they were raised.
Mesopotamia was covered, then, by buildings resembling a stepped pyramid in their general outlines. We find them in the reliefs ([Fig. 10]), and in the oldest cities we can frequently recognize the confused ruins of their two or three lower stories. Our only doubt is connected with the possible use of these buildings, the zigguratts of the Assyrian texts. We shall not here stop to recapitulate the evidence in favour of their religious character; it will suffice to quote the description given by Herodotus of the temple of Bel or Belus at Babylon. As to whether the ruins of that building are to be identified with Babil ([Fig. 37]) or the Birs-Nimroud ([Fig. 168]) we shall inquire presently. This is the description of Herodotus:—
"In the other (fortress) was the sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus, a square inclosure two furlongs each way with gates of solid brass; which was also remaining in my time. In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. When one is about half way up one finds a resting-place and seats, where persons are wont to sit some time on their way to the summit. On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple, and inside the temple stands a couch of unusual size, richly adorned with a golden table by its side. There is no statue of any kind set up in the place nor is the chamber occupied of nights by any one but a single native woman.... Below in the same precinct there is a second temple, in which is a sitting figure of Jupiter all of gold ... outside the temple are two altars."[453]
This description is, of course, very short; it omits many details that we should have wished to find in it; but like nearly all the descriptions of Herodotus it is very clear. The old historian saw well, and his mind retained what he saw. From his recital it is plain that this was the finest of the Babylonian temples, and that even when partly ruinous, under the successors of Alexander, its colossal dimensions were yet able to astonish foreign visitors. We may, then, take it as the type of the Chaldæan temple, as the finest religious building in the first city of Mesopotamia. Nebuchadnezzar reconstructed it and made it higher and richer in its ornamentation than before, but he kept to the ancient foundations and made no change in the general character of the plan. In this single edifice were gathered up all the threads of a long tradition; it was, as it were, the supreme effort, the last word of the national art: and Herodotus declares plainly that it was a staged tower.
Such an assertion puts the matter beyond a doubt, and enables us to point to the staged tower as the form chosen by these people and made use of throughout their civilization for the buildings raised in honour of their gods. And having dismissed this fundamental question we have now to give a rapid description of the principal varieties of the type as they have been established by M. Chipiez. And as we go on we shall point out the authorities for each restoration; whether the ruins themselves, the inscribed texts, or the sculptured reliefs.
Figs. 169-171.—Longitudinal section, plan and horizontal section of the rectangular type of Chaldæan temple.
In the first line we must place the Rectangular Chaldæan Temple ([Plate II]. and [Figs. 169, 170,] and [171]). We have put it first because the remains from which it has been reconstructed have all been found in Lower Chaldæa, that is, amongst the oldest of the Chaldæan cities. As we learn from the texts, these temples were repaired under the last kings of Babylon, and it was their antiquity that made them dear both to the people and their kings. We may believe, therefore, that in restoring them care was taken to preserve their ancient features. It would be the upper part of their retaining walls that required renewal, and these would be rebuilt on their ancient foundations. Here and there the latter exist even at the present day, and the names of the earliest Chaldæan princes may be read upon their bricks.[454]
The remains studied by Messrs. Taylor and Loftus at Warka ([Fig. 172]), Abou-Sharein, and Mugheir have furnished the chief elements for our restoration, which bears a strong resemblance to the ruin at Warka called Bouvariia (A on the map), and one still stronger to that temple at Mugheir whose present state is shown in our [Figs. 48] and [143]. This first type is characterized by the form of its lower, and the situation of its upper, stages. The latter are not placed in the centre of the platform on which they stand; they are thrown back much nearer to one of the two shorter sides than to the other, so that the building has a front and a back. The front is almost entirely taken up with wide staircases.[455] The staircase leading from the first story to the second must alone have been concealed in the interior of the building, an arrangement which avoided the necessity for breaking up the ample solidity of that imposing stage (see [Plate II.]).
The surroundings of the temple in our plate—the background of slightly undulating plain, the houses similar to those found by Taylor and Loftus, in which they discovered vaulted passages traversing the thickness of the walls[456]—are, of course, purely imaginary.
The temple itself, like the palace at Khorsabad, was raised on a vast platform upon which the city walls abutted. This platform was reached by wide flights of steps.[457] Lateral ramps led to a second platform, inclosed on every side, with which the sacred part of the building, the Haram, began. We have already spoken of the panelled ornament with which the great, flat surfaces of its walls were relieved.[458] The lowest stage of the temple was provided with buttresses like those that still exist in the temple of Mugheir ([Fig. 43]). A high, rectangular plinth—decorated in our restoration with glazed faïence[459]—was interposed between the first and second stage.[460] A rectangular chapel decorated, in all probability, with metal plaques and glazed polychromatic bricks, crowned the whole. Traces of this chapel have been found at Mugheir, and the wealth of its decoration is attested by many pieces of evidence.[461] At Abou-Sharein also there are vestiges of a small and richly ornamented sanctuary crowning the second stage of a ruin whose aspect now bears a distinct resemblance to that of the temple at Mugheir. The triple row of crenellations we have given to this sanctuary or chapel was suggested by the altars and obelisks ([Fig. 107] and [111]). Here, as at Nineveh, these battlements must have been the one universal finish to the walls. The use to which we have put them is quite in harmony with the spirit of Mesopotamian architecture, but there is no direct evidence of their presence in these buildings. In this particular our restoration is conjectural.
A glance at our longitudinal section ([Fig. 169]) will show that we have left the main body of this great mass of sun-dried brick absolutely solid. It was in vain that, at Mugheir, trenches and shafts were cut through the flanks of the ruin, not a sign of any apartment or void of the most elementary kind was found.[462]
This Mugheir temple rises hardly more than fifty feet above the level of the plain. The restoration by M. Chipiez, for which it furnished the elements, shows a height of 135 feet; judging from the proportions of its remains the building can hardly have been higher than that. But it is certain that many temples reached a far greater height, otherwise their size could not have made any great impression upon travellers who had seen the Egyptian pyramids. Even now the Birs-Nimroud, which has been undergoing for so many centuries a continual process of diminution, rises no less than 235 feet above the surrounding country,[463] and Strabo, the only Greek author who says anything precise as to the height of the greatest of the Babylonian monuments, writes thus: "This monument, which was, they say, overthrown by Xerxes, was a square pyramid of burnt brick, one stade (606¾ feet) high, and one stade in diameter."[464]
The arrangement by which such a height could be most easily reached would be the superposition of square masses one upon another, each mass being centrally placed on the upper surface of the one below it. The weight would be more equally divided and the risks of settlement more slight than in any other system. Of this type M. Chipiez has restored two varieties. We shall first describe the simpler of the two, which we may call the Square Single-ramped Chaldæan Temple ([Figs. 173,] [174, 175, 176]).
The principal elements for this restoration have been taken from the staged tower at Khorsabad known as the Observatory, but M. Chipiez has expanded its dimensions until they almost reach those ascribed to the temple of Bel by Strabo. Moreover, he had to decide a delicate question which the discovery of the Khorsabad Observatory, where only the four lower stages remained, had done nothing to solve, namely the plan and inclination of the ramp. In M. Thomas's restoration of the Khorsabad tower, the last section of the ramp at the top, is parallel to that at the bottom, and the crowning platform is not exactly upon the central axis of the building.[465] In M. Chipiez's restoration the top platform is in the centre, like those below it, and the upper end of his ramp is vertically over the spot where it leaves the ground. This result has been obtained by a peculiar arrangement of the inclined plane which must have been known to the Mesopotamian architects, seeing how great was their practice and how desirable, in their eyes, was the symmetrical aspect which it alone could give. We have suggested the varied colours of the different stages by changes of tone in our engraving. In spite of the words of Herodotus M. Chipiez has only given his tower seven stages, because that number seems to have been sacred and traditional, and Herodotus may very well have counted the plinth or the terminal chapel in the eight mentioned in his description. Bearing in mind a passage in Diodorus—"At the summit Semiramis placed three statues of beaten gold, Zeus, Hera, and Rhea"[466]—we have crowned its apex with such a group. The phrase of Herodotus, "Below ... there is a second temple," has led us to introduce chapels contrived in the interior of the mass and opening on the ramp at the fifth and sixth stories. There is nothing to forbid the idea that such chambers were much more numerous than this, and opened, sometimes on one, sometimes on another, of the four faces.
The buildings at the lower part of our engraving are imaginary, but they are by no means improbable. Among them may be distinguished the wide flights of steps and inclined planes by which the platform on which the temple stood was reached.[467] At the foot of the temple on the right of the engraving there is a palace, on the left two obelisk-shaped steles and a small temple of a type to be presently described. Behind the tower stretch away the waters of a lake. Nebuchadnezzar, in one of his inscriptions, speaks of surrounding the temple he had built with a lake.
Figs. 174-176.—Transverse section, plan, and horizontal section of a square, single-ramped, Chaldæan Temple.
Figs. 177-179.—Transverse section, plan, and horizontal section of a square, double-ramped Chaldæan Temple.
In seeking to vary the effect produced by these external ramps, the idea of a more complicated arrangement than the one last noticed may have occurred to the Chaldees. This M. Chipiez has embodied in his restoration of a Square Double-ramped Chaldæan Temple ([Plate III.] and [Figs. 177, 178,] and [179]). As in the last model, there are seven stages, each stage being square on plan, but the difference consists in the use of two ramps leading from base to summit. Each of these keeps to its own side of the building, only approaching the other on the front and back façades at the fourth, fifth, and sixth stages (see ([Plate III]). In order that the building as a whole should have a symmetrical and monumental appearance, it was necessary that all its seven stages—with the exception of the first, to which a rather different rôle was assigned—should be of equal height. But their length and width differed in proportion to their height in the building. The continual shortening of the distance within which the incline had to be packed, would, if we suppose each ramp confined to one side of the tower, have required the slope to become steeper with each story. Such a want of parallelism would have been very ugly, and there was but one means of avoiding it, and that was to continue the ramps nearly to the centre of the front at the fourth and sixth stages, and to the centre of the posterior façade at the fifth. The advantages of such an arrangement are obvious. Banished mostly to the flanks the double ramp left four stages clear both at front and back, providing an ample promenade. On the other three it showed itself just sufficiently to "furnish" the building and diversify its aspect without in any way encumbering it. The whole structure terminated in a chapel placed on the central axis of the tower, and surmounted by a cupola. The inscriptions mention the dome covered with leaves of chiselled gold which crowned at Babylon that temple "to the foundations of the earth" which was restored by Nebuchadnezzar.[468]
In these texts another sanctuary included in the same building and placed half way between the base and summit is mentioned. This was the sepulchral chamber of Bel-Merodach in which his oracle was consulted; in M. Chipiez's restoration the entrance to this sanctuary is placed in the middle of the fifth story.
The vast esplanade about the base of the temple was suggested by the description of Herodotus. It is borne by two colossal plinths flanked and retained by buttresses. In our plate the lower of these two plinths is only hinted at in the two bottom corners. In the distance behind the temple itself may be seen one of those embattled walls which divided Babylon into so many fortresses, and, still farther away, another group of large buildings surrounded by a wall and the ordinary houses of the city.
This double-ramped type is at once the most beautiful and the most workmanlike of those offered by these staged towers. With a single ramp we get a tower whose four faces are repetitions of each other, but here we have a true façade, on which a happy contrast is established between the unbroken stages and those upon which the ramps appear—between oblique lines and lines parallel with the soil. The building gains in repose and solidity, and its true scale becomes more evident than when the eye is led insensibly from base to summit by a monotonous spiral.
Figs. 180-182.—Square Assyrian temple. Longitudinal section, horizontal section and plan.
We cannot positively affirm that the architects of Mesopotamia understood and made use of the system just described; there is no positive evidence on the point.[469] It contains, however, nothing but a logical development from the premises, nothing but what is in perfect keeping with Mesopotamian habits, nothing that involves difficulties of execution or construction beyond those over which we know them to have triumphed. Besides, we have proofs that they were not content to go on servilely reproducing one and the same type for twenty centuries; their temples were not all shaped in the same mould. The type of the Mugheir temple differed sensibly from that of the Khorsabad Observatory. One of the Kouyundjik sculptures reveals a curious variant of the traditional theme, so far as Assyria was concerned, in an arrangement of the staged tower that we should never have suspected but for the survival of this relief ([Fig. 34]). The picture in question is no doubt very much abridged and far from true to the proportions of the original, but yet it has furnished M. Chipiez with the elements of a restoration in which conjecture has had very little to say. This we have called the Square Assyrian Temple (see [Plate IV.] and [Figs. 180-182]).
According to the relief the tower itself rises upon a dome-shaped mound in front of which there are a large doorway and two curved ramps. From all that we know of Assyrian buildings of this kind we may be sure that the original of the picture was so placed. The form of the mound may be described as reproducing the extrados of a depressed arch. This is the only form on which flights of steps with a curve similar to that here shown could be constructed. The design of the steps in our plate corresponds exactly to that indicated more roughly by the sculptor; no other means of affording convenient access to the base of the tower—at least outside the mound—could have been contrived. Two doors were pierced at the head of the steps through the large panels with which the lower stage of the tower itself was decorated, and from that point, so far as we can tell from the relief, the ascent was continued by means of internal staircases. The sculptor has only shown three stages, but—unless the absence of anything above has been caused by the mutilation of the slab—we may suppose that he has voluntarily suppressed a fourth.[470] In any case the third story is too large to have formed the apex of the tower. The general proportions suggest at least one more stage for the support of the usual chapel. The latter we have restored as a timber structure covered with metal plates, skins, or coloured planks. The three stages immediately below the chapel we have decorated with painted imitations of panels, carried out either in fresco or glazed brick. As for the internal arrangements we know very little. The great doorway with which the mound itself is prefaced in the relief must have led to some apartment worthy of its size and importance; we have therefore pierced the mass in our section with a suite of several chambers. At the second story another doorway occurs; it is much smaller and more simple, and the chamber to which it led must have been comparatively unimportant. In our [Fig. 180] it is restored as the approach to the internal staircase.
In order to vary the framework of our restorations and to show Assyrian architecture in as many aspects as possible, we have placed this temple within a fortified wall, like that of Khorsabad. Within a kind of bastion towards the left of the plate we have introduced one of those small temples of which remains have been found at Khorsabad and Nimroud. The walls of the town form a continuation of those about the temple. In front of the principal entrance to the sacred inclosure we have set up a commemorative stele.
Aided by these restorations we hope to have given a clearer and more vivid idea of Chaldæan art than if we had confined ourselves to describing the scanty remains of their religious buildings. We have now to give a rapid review of those existing ruins whose former purposes and arrangements may still to a certain extent be traced.
NOTES
[451] These restorations of the principal types of Chaldæan temples were exhibited by M. Chipiez in the Salon of 1879, under the title Tours à Étages de la Chaldée et de l'Assyrie.
[452] Chapter II. § 2.
[453] Herodotus, i, 181-3, Rawlinson's version. By Jupiter, or rather Zeus, we must understand Bel-Merodach. Diodorus calls the god of the temple Zeus Belus.
[454] Loftus, Travels, &c., p. 131. See also Taylor's papers in vol. xv. of the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal.
[455] Loftus, (p. 129). "It rather struck me, however, from the gradual inclination from top to base, that a grand staircase of the same width as the upper story, occupied this side of the structure."
[456] Loftus, Travels, &c., p. 133.
[457] At Warka, around the ruin called Wuswas by the Arabs, Loftus traced the plan of these great courtyards and platforms (Travels, p. 171).
[458] See above, p. 246, figs. 100 and 102.
[459] Numerous pieces of glazed tile were found in these ruins.
[460] The idea of this plinth was suggested to M. Chipiez by a remark made on page 129 of Loftus's Travels: "Between the stories is a gradual stepped incline about seven feet in perpendicular height, which may however, be accidental, and arise from the destruction of the upper part of the lower story."
[461] See Taylor, Journal, &c., pp. 264-5.
[462] Loftus, Travels, p. 130. It was the same with the Observatory at Khorsabad.
[463] Layard, Discoveries, p. 495.
[464] The authorities made use of by Strabo for his description of Babylon, all lived in the time of Alexander and his successors; no one of them could have seen the temple intact and measured its height. Founded upon tradition or upon the inspection of the remains, the figure given by the geographer can only be approximate. I should think it is probably an exaggeration.
[465] See Place, Ninive, vol. iii, plate 37.
[466] Diodorus, ii, 9, 5.
[467] These courts must have been at certain times of the day the meeting place of large numbers of the population, like the courtyards of a modern mosque. Shops in which religious emblems and other objèts-de-piété were sold would stand about them, just as in the present day the traveller finds a regular fair in the courtyard of the mosque Meshed-Ali. Among the commodities that change hands in such places, white doves are very common (Loftus, Travels, p. 53). In this perhaps, we may recognize the survival of a pagan rite, the sacrifice of a dove to the Babylonian Istar, the Phœnician Astarte, and the Grecian Aphrodite. It was in the courtyards of one of these temples that those sacred prostitutions of which Herodotus speaks, took place (i. 199). The great extent of the inclosures is readily explained by the crowds they were then required to accommodate.
[468] "I undertook in Bit-Saggatu," says the king, "the restoration of the chamber of Merodach; I gave to its cupola the form of a lily, and I covered it with chiselled gold, so that it shone like the day," London inscription, translated by M. Fr. Lenormant, in his Histoire ancienne, vol. ii. pp. 228-229. See also a text of Philostratus in his life of Apollonius of Tyana, (i. 25). The sophist who seems to have founded his description of Babylon on good information, speaks of a "great brick edifice plated with bronze, which had a dome representing the firmament and shining with gold and sapphires."
[469] The idea has also occurred to M. Oppert of restricting the ramp to two sides of the tower, to the exclusion of the others (Expédition scientifique, vol. i. p. 209); but so far as we understand his system—which he has not illustrated with any figure—he does not double his incline, he merely alternates its side at each stage, so that part of it would be on the north-west, part on the south-west face of his tower.
[470] The original of this relief has not been brought to Europe. We are therefore unable to decide whether Layard's draughtsman has accurately represented its condition or not.
In describing the first of our four types we had occasion to point to the buildings at Warka and Mugheir, which enabled us to restore what may be called the Lower Chaldæan form of temple. The mounds formed by the remains of those buildings had not been touched for thousands of years, they had entirely escaped such disturbance as the ruins of Babylon have undergone for so many centuries at the hand of the builders of Bagdad and Hillah; and it is probable that explorations carried on methodically and with intelligent patience would give most interesting results. If, for instance, the foundations of all walls were systematically cleared, we should be enabled to restore with absolute certainty the plans of the buildings to which they belonged. To the monuments discovered by the English explorers we must now add a find made by M. de Sarzec at Tello, of which, however, full details have yet to be furnished.[471] We take the following from the too short letter that was read to the Academy of Inscriptions on the 2nd of December 1881. "Finally, it was in that part of the building marked h that opens upon the court b that I found the curious structure of which I spoke to you. This solid mass of burnt brick and bitumen, with diminishing terraces rising one above the other, reminds us of those Chaldæo-Babylonian structures whose probable object was to afford a refuge to the inhabitants from the swarms of insects and burning winds that devastate these regions for nine months of the year." Here, we believe, M. de Sarzec is in error; the only refuges against the inflamed breath of the desert were the serdabs, the subterranean chambers with their scanty light and moistened walls, and the dark apartments of Assyrian palaces with their walls of prodigious thickness. The great terraces erected at such a vast expenditure of labour were not undertaken merely to escape the mosquitoes; we may take M. de Sarzec's words, however, as a proof that at Sirtella as in all the towns of Lower Chaldæa, the remains of a building with several stories or stages are to be recognized.
The ruins on the site of Babylon may be divided into four principal groups, each forming small hills that are visible for many miles round; they are designated on the annexed map by the names under which they are commonly known. These are, in their order from north to south, Babil, El-Kasr (or Mudjelibeh) and Tell-Amran, on the left bank; on the right bank the most conspicuous of them all, the Birs-Nimroud.[472] Most of those who have studied the topography of Babylon are disposed to see in the Kasr and in Tell-Amran the remains of a vast palace, or rather of several palaces, built by different kings, and those of the famous hanging gardens; while in Babil ([Plate I.] and [Fig. 37]) and the Birs Nimroud ([Fig. 168]) they agree to recognize all that is left of the two chief religious buildings of Babylon. Babil would be the oldest of them all—the Bit-Saggatu or "temple of the foundations of the earth" which stood in the very centre of the royal city and was admired and described by Herodotus. The Birs-Nimroud would correspond to the no less celebrated temple of Borsippa, the Bit-Zida, the "temple of the planets and of the seven spheres."
At Babil no explorations have thrown the least light upon the disposition of the building. In the whole of its huge mass, which rises to a height of some 130 feet above the plain, no trace of the separate cubes or of their dimensions is to be found. All the restorations that have been made are purely imaginary. At Birs-Nimroud the excavations of Sir Henry Rawlinson in 1854 were by no means fruitless but, unhappily, we are without any detailed account of their results. So far as we have been told, it would appear that the existence of at least six of the seven stages had been ascertained and the monument, which, according to Sir Henry Rawlinson's measurements, is now 153 feet high; can have lost but little of its original height. We can hardly believe however, that the violence of man and the storms of so many centuries have done so little damage.[473] It seems to be more clearly proved that, in shape, the temple belonged to the class we have described under the head of The Rectangular Chaldæan Temple.[474] The axis of the temple, the vertical line upon which the centre of the terminal chapel must have been placed, was not at an equal distance from the north-western and south-eastern sides, so that the building had its gentlest slope—taking it as a whole—towards the south-east.[475] On that side the cubical blocks of which it was composed were so placed as to leave much wider steps than on the north-west. The temple therefore had a true façade, in front of which propylæa, like the one introduced in our restoration from the ruins at Mugheir, were placed. The difference consists in the fact that here the stages are square on plan. The lowest stage was 273 feet each way; it rested upon a platform of sun-dried brick which rose but a few feet above the level of the plain.
Supposing these measurements to be exact they suggest a building which was nothing extraordinary either in height or mass. The dimensions furnished by Rich and Ker-Porter are much greater. Both of these speak of a base a stade, or about 606 feet, square, which would give a circumference of no less than 2,424 feet—not much less than half a mile. In any case the temple now represented by Babil must have been the larger of the two. M. Oppert mentions 180 metres, or about 600 feet, as one diameter of the present rather irregular mass. That would still be inferior to the Pyramid of Cheops, which is 764 feet square at the base, and yet the diameter of 600 feet for Babil is, no doubt, in excess of its original dimensions. The accumulation of rubbish must have enlarged its base in every direction.
It seems clear, therefore, that the great structures of Chaldæa were inferior to the largest of the royal tombs of Egypt, both in height and lateral extent. We do not know how far the subsidiary buildings by which the staged towers are surrounded and supplemented in our plates may have extended, but it is difficult to believe that their number or importance could have made the ensemble to which they belonged a rival to Karnak, or even to Luxor.
If we may judge from the texts and the existing ruins, the religious buildings of Assyria were smaller than those of Chaldæa. When the Ten Thousand traversed the valley of the Tigris in their famous retreat, they passed close to a large abandoned city, which Xenophon calls Larissa. As to whether his Larissa was Calah (Nimroud), or Nineveh (Kouyundjik), we need not now inquire, but his short description of a staged tower is of great interest: "Near this town," he says, "there was a stone pyramid two plethra (about 203 feet) high; each side of its base was one plethron in length."[476]
The tower cleared by Layard at Nimroud is perhaps the very one seen by Xenophon.[477] The Greek soldier speaks of a stone pyramid while the Nimroud tower is of brick, but the whole of its substructure is cased with the finer material to a height of nearly twenty-four feet, which is quite enough to account for Xenophon's statement. As for his dimensions, they should not be taken too literally. In their rapid and anxious march the Greek commanders had no time to wield the plumb-line or the measuring-chain; they must have trusted mainly to their eyes in arriving at a notion of the true size of the buildings by which their attention was attracted. The tower at Nimroud must have been about 150 feet square, measured along its plinth; the present height of the mound is 141 feet, and nothing above the first stage now exists. As Layard remarks, one or two stories more must be taken into the account, and they would easily make up an original elevation of from 200 to 240 feet, or about that of the Larissa tower. Xenophon made use of the word pyramid because his language furnished him with no term more accurate. Like the true pyramid, the staged tower diminished gradually from base to summit, and there can be no doubt as to the real character of the building seen by the Greeks, as may be gathered from their leader's statement, that the "barbarians from the neighbouring villages took refuge upon it in great numbers." Such buildings as the pyramids of Egypt and Ethiopia could have afforded no refuge of the kind. A few could stand upon their summits, supposing them to have lost their capstones, but it would require the wide ramps and terraces of the staged tower to afford a foothold for the population of several villages.[478]
Nothing but the first two stages, or rather the plinth and the first stage, now remain at Nimroud of what must have been the chief temple of Calah. There is no trace either of the ramp or of the colours with which the different stories were ornamented. The Khorsabad tower discovered by Place is more interesting and much more instructive as to the arrangement and constitution of these buildings.[479]
Fig. 184.—Actual condition of the so-called Observatory, at Khorsabad; from Place.
This tower was previously hidden under a mass of débris, which gave it a conical form like that at Nimroud. Botta had already noticed its existence, but he failed to guess its real character, which, indeed, was only divined by Place when his explorations were far advanced. As soon as all doubt was removed as to the real character of the monument, M. Place took every care to preserve all that might yet exist of it, and our [Fig. 184] shows the state of the building after the excavations were complete. Three whole stages and part of a fourth (to say nothing of the plinth) were still in existence. The face of each stage was ornamented with vertical grooves, repeating horizontally the elevation of the Assyrian stepped battlements ([Fig. 102]); the coloured stucco, varying in hue from one stage to another, was still in place, and confirmed the assertions of Herodotus as to the traditional sequence of tints.[480] The external ramp, with its pavement of burnt brick and its crenellated parapet, was also found.[481] At its base the first stage described upon the soil a square of about 143 feet each way. Each of the three complete stages was twenty feet three inches high.
Upon such data M. Thomas had no difficulty in restoring the whole building. Evidently the fourth story could not have been the original apex, as it would have been strange indeed, if, when all the rest of the Khorsabad palace had lost its upper works, the sun-dried bricks of the Observatory alone had resisted the agents of destruction. Moreover the materials of the higher stories still exist in the 40,000 cubic yards of rubbish which cover the surrounding platform to an average depth of about ten feet.
Fig. 185.—The Observatory restored. Elevation.
How many stages were there? Struck by the importance of the number seven in Assyrian architecture, M. Thomas fixed upon that number. Even at Khorsabad itself the figure continually crops up. The city walls had seven gates. One of the commonest of the ornamental motives found upon the external and internal walls of the Harem is the band of seven half columns illustrated on page [247]. Herodotus tells us of the seven different colours used on the concentric walls of Ecbatana. Finally, in assigning seven stories to the building we get a total elevation of 140 feet, which corresponds so closely to the 143 feet of the base that we may take the two as identical, and account for the slight difference between them, amounting only to about three inches for each story, by the difficulty in taking correct measurements on a ruined structure of sun-dried brick. And we should remember that Strabo tells us in a passage already quoted that the height of the great temple at Babylon was equal to its shorter diameter, an arrangement that may to some extent have been prescribed by custom.
Fig. 186.—The Observatory restored. Plan.
So far then as its main features are concerned, we may look upon the restoration we borrow from M. Place's work as perfectly authentic ([Figs. 185] and [186]). Our section ([Fig. 187]) is meant to show that no trace of any internal chamber or void of the smallest kind was discovered by the French explorers. It is, however, quite possible that such chambers were contrived in the upper stories, but we have no evidence of their existence. We may say the same of the resting-places mentioned by Herodotus in his description of the temple of Belus. But supposing that edifice to have had seven stages, its ramp must have been about a thousand yards long, and it is likely enough that halting places were provided on such a long ascent.
Fig. 187.—The Observatory. Transverse section through AB.
It is not until we come to discuss the object of such a building that we feel compelled to part company with MM. Place and Thomas. They are inclined to believe that it was an observatory rather than a temple, and under that title they have described it. Although we have made use of the name thus given we do not think it has been justified. There is nothing, says M. Place, among the ruins at Khorsabad to show that the tower ever bore any chapel or tabernacle upon its apex. But according to their own hypothesis it has lost its three highest stories, so why should they expect to find any vestige of such a chapel, seeing that it must have been the first thing to disappear? There is absolutely nothing to negative the idea that it may have been of wood, in which case its total disappearance would not be surprising, even after the platform had been thoroughly explored; and that is far from being the case at present. Moreover there is some little evidence that the purpose of the pyramid was religious. Two stone altars were found in its neighbourhood. Whether they came from its summit or from the esplanade, they justify us in believing the Observatory to have been a temple. We are confirmed in this belief by the similarity—which M. Place himself points out—between it and the chief monuments of Babylon, as described by Herodotus. It seems to be incontestable that Chaldæa adopted this form for the largest and most sumptuous of her temples, and why should we suppose the Assyrians to have broken with that tradition and to have devoted to a different use buildings planned and constructed on the same principle?
It is true that tablets have been found in the royal archives at Kouyundjik upon which reports as to the condition of the heavens are recorded for the guidance of the king,[482] but there is nothing in these so far as they have been deciphered to show that the observations were taken from the summit of a zigguratt. It is, however, very probable that the astronomers availed themselves of such a height above the plain in order to escape from floating vapours and to gain a wider horizon. The platform of the Khorsabad tower must have had a superficial extent of about 180 square yards. There may have been a chapel or tabernacle in the centre, and yet plenty of space for the astrologers to do their work at their ease. We do not wish to deny, therefore, that this tower and other monuments of the same kind may have been used as observatories, but we believe that in Assyria, as in Chaldæa, their primary object was a religious one—that they were raised so far above the dwellings of man, even of the king himself, in order to do honour to the gods whose sanctuaries were to crown their summits.[483]
NOTES
[471] See Les Fouilles de Chaldée in the Revue archéologique for November, 1881. M. de Sarzec refers us in his paper to a plan which has not yet been laid before the Academy. We regret very much that its publication should have been so long delayed, as we have been prevented from making as much use as we should have wished of M. de Sarzec's architectural discoveries.
[472] The clearest and most precise information upon the topography of Babylon is to be found in Professor Rawlinson's essay on that subject in the second volume of his translation of Herodotus (p. 570, in the third edition).
[473] In making his calculations, Professor Rawlinson has certainly forgotten to take into account the pier or section of wall that still stands upright upon the surface of the mound (Oppert, Expédition scientifique, vol. i. pp. 260, et seq.). It is clearly shown in our figure—Sir Henry Layard leaves us in no doubt on this score: "The Birs-Nimroud rises to a height of 198 feet, and has on its summit a compact mass of brickwork thirty-seven feet high by twenty-eight broad, the whole being thus 235 feet in perpendicular height," Discoveries, p. 495. Layard says, however, that the dimensions here given were taken from Rich, as he had no time to take measurements during his hurried visit. Ed.
[474] Discoveries, p. 495.
[475] We take these details from Professor Rawlinson's essay on the topography of Babylon.
[476] Xenophon, Anabasis, iii, 4, 9.
[477] Layard, Discoveries, pp. 126-128, and map 2.
[478] At Kaleh Shergat, where the site of an important, but as yet unidentified Assyrian city has been recognized, there is a conical mound, recalling in its general aspect the Nimroud tower, which must contain all that is left of a zigguratt; but no deep excavations have yet been made in it (Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 61).
[479] Place, Ninive, vol. i. pp. 147-148, and plates 36-37.
[480] See above, pp. 272-274.
[481] We have already mentioned the size of its steps; see page 192. The gradient for the first stage was about one in twenty. In the upper stages it must have been far steeper, as the circumference of the stages was much less, while their height remained the same. It never became very abrupt however, as supposing that the original number of stories was seven, the gradient would not be more than about one in fourteen close to the summit.
[482] Lenormant, Histoire ancienne, vol. ii. p. 200 (3rd edition).
[483] The position occupied by this staged tower in the plan of the royal palace at Khorsabad suggests that perhaps neither of the two explanations of its purpose here alluded to is the true one. It is placed immediately outside the Harem wall—and as to the identity of the Harem there can be no doubt—in such a way that any one ascending it must have had an uninterrupted view into the numerous courts of the women's apartments. Such a possibility seems inconsistent with the numerous precautions taken to secure the privacy of that part of the palace (see Vol. II. Chapter I. § 2). Perhaps the real solution of the difficulty is to be found in a suggestion made, but only to be cast aside, by Mr. Fergusson, that this Khorsabad zigguratt was, in fact, a private oratory for the exclusive use of Sargon himself (History of Architecture, vol. i. p. 173).—Ed.
§ 3.—Subordinate Types of the Temple.
Side by side with these pyramidal temples the Assyrians seem to have placed others of a less ambitious kind, dedicated, no doubt, to deities of the second rank. The great staged towers, whose height and mass implied an effort that could not be often repeated, were devoted to the worship of the great national gods. Botta believed that he had discovered a temple of this smaller kind in the building from which we borrowed the example of an Assyrian moulding reproduced in our [Figs. 98] and [99]. This edifice is remarkable, not only for its cornice, but also because it is built of limestone and decorated with sculptures carved from slabs of basalt, the only things of the kind that have been discovered in the Khorsabad ruins. The general arrangements are unlike those of any other part of the palace. Unfortunately the building is in a very bad condition. Even its plan can only be restored in part. Thomas is inclined to see in it rather a throne room, or divan, as it would be called in the modern East, than a temple. The few bas-reliefs which may be certainly recognized as having belonged to it are not religious in their character; they represent hunting scenes, battles and prisoners bringing tribute. Although Thomas's restoration is, as he himself confesses, entirely conjectural, we have no serious motive for pronouncing the building to have been a temple.[484]
| Fig. 188.—Plan of a small temple at Nimroud; from Layard. | Fig. 189.—Plan of a small temple at Nimroud; from Layard. |
On the other hand, Layard seems to have had good reasons for recognizing small temples in the structures he cleared near the great staged tower at Nimroud.[485] The more important of the two was actually touching that tower ([Fig. 188]). The character of the building is at once betrayed by the nature of its sculptures, which are religious rather than historical—figures of gods and genii, scenes of adoration and mystic theology. And it was not without a purpose that it was put into close juxtaposition with a zigguratt, an arrangement that proves it to have formed a part of a collection of buildings consecrated, by the prince whose dwelling covered the rest of the platform, to the gods in whose protection he placed his trust. The second and smaller temple stands about thirty yards to the east on the very edge of the artificial mound ([Fig. 189]). An altar with three feet carved in the shape of lion's paws was found in front of the entrance.[486] There were no bas-reliefs: the decorations were carried out in paint. The number of rooms was less, but their general arrangement was similar to that of the larger building. The chief feature of both was a large hall (e in the first plan, c in the second) with a square niche at one of its extremities (f in the first plan, d in the second). This niche was paved with a single slab of alabaster, of considerable size and covered upon both faces with a long inscription describing in detail the reign of the prince by whom the temple was consecrated. In the larger of the two buildings the slab in question was twenty-three feet four inches long and seventeen feet eight inches wide; its thickness was twelve inches. Upon it stood, in all probability, the statue of the god. The niche must, in fact, have been the secos, or sanctuary properly speaking. The large oblong hall was the naos or cella. In the larger temple its length was forty-six feet seven inches. It was preceded by a pronaos or vestibule ([Fig. 188], c). We have no evidence as to the purpose of the chamber marked g in our plan. It has a direct entrance of its own from the outside (h). The small temple is rather less complicated. Two doorways (b and f) lead immediately into the principal hall or naos. A small chamber (e) behind the sanctuary was, perhaps, a kind of storeroom or sacristy. It should be noticed that in the little temple the doors into the naos were so placed that the image in the sanctuary could not be seen from without.[487] In both buildings the doors were flanked by winged lions or bulls, like those of the royal palaces. The walls of the larger temple were decorated with glazed bricks.
These temples of the second class lent themselves to a great variety of forms. Some of them had their façades crowned by a triangular pediment, like those of the Greek temples ([Fig. 190]). It is true that the Khorsabad relief whence we copy this peculiar arrangement deals with the capture of an Armenian city, Mousasir, called in the narrative of Sargon's conquests "the dwelling of the god Haldia,"[488] whose temple must be here figured by the sculptor. Must we believe that the artist has given his temple a form unfamiliar to himself in deference to the accounts of those who had taken part in the campaign? Is it not more probable that he copied some model which would be recognized by every spectator as that of a temple, from its frequent occurrence in the neighbourhood of the very palace on whose decoration he was at work? We are inclined to say yes to the latter question. But even if we look upon this relief as a faithful sketch from an Armenian temple we shall still believe that it reproduces a type not unknown to Assyrian art. Everything combines to prove that the inhabitants of the mountainous countries situated to the east and north of Assyria had no original and well-marked civilization of their own during any part of the period with which we are now concerned. Just as Ethiopia borrowed everything from Egypt, so the Medes and Armenians drew both their arts and their written character from Chaldæa, by way of Assyria. All the objects found in the neighbourhood of Lake Van are purely Assyrian in character, and no question is raised as to the fitness of their place in our museums side by side with objects from Nimroud and Khorsabad. It is, however, of little importance whether the temple shown in our woodcut was or was not copied from nature; if there were such buildings in Armenia it was because similar ones had previously existed in Assyria, from which the architects of the semi-barbarous people, who were in turn the enemies, the vassals and the subjects of the Ninevite monarchs, had borrowed their leading features.
Moreover, we find one of the most characteristic features of Assyrian architecture occurring in this Armenian monument. The entrance is flanked by lions similar to those which guard the temples at Nimroud.[489] The other features of the composition are quite new to us. In front of the temple two large vases are supported on tripods, of bronze no doubt. They contained the water required for purifications; we shall encounter them again in Syria. They remind us of the "molten sea" of Solomon's temple. The temple stands upon a high plinth, to which access must have been given by steps omitted by the sculptor. At each side of the door stands a lance-headed pole, indicating, perhaps, that the temple was dedicated to a god of war. In front of these lances stand two people in attitudes of adoration; statues, perhaps, or figures in relief. The façade is formed of pilasters divided horizontally by narrow bands; upon these pilasters, and on the wall between them, hang shields or targets, that accord well with the lances flanking the entrance. From two of the pilasters on the left of the doorway lions' heads and shoulders seem to issue; these, too, may be taken as symbolical of the bellicose disposition of the god to whom the building was dedicated. The pediment with which the façade is crowned is rather low in its proportions. Its tympanum is filled with a kind of reticulated ornament made up of small lozenges or meshes. There is nothing to throw light upon the internal arrangements, but by the aid of this carved sketch the façade may be easily restored, save, of course, in the matter of size, at which we can only guess.
The type is chiefly interesting on account of its analogy with the Greek temple. We have already drawn attention to similar points of likeness in the small buildings in which the column plays such an important part ([Figs. 41] and [42]). We have seen that some of those little structures resemble the Egyptian temples, others the Greek temple in antis.[490] For the sake of completeness we may also mention the pavilion we find so often in the Chaldæan monuments ([Fig. 79]). It is crowned with the horned mitre we are accustomed to see upon the heads of the winged bulls. Our interest has been awakened in these little chapels chiefly on account of the decorative forms of which they afford such early examples. It is not to them that we must look for the distinctive features of Mesopotamian temple architecture. These we must find in the staged tower or zigguratt. Why is it that the whole of those monuments, with the single exception of the so-called Observatory of Khorsabad, are now mere heaps of formless dust, fulfilling to the letter the biblical prophecies as to the fate of Nineveh and Babylon? One traveller tells us how when he approached the Birs-Nimroud he saw wolves stretched upon its slopes and basking in the sun. Before they would lazily rise and make up their minds to decamp, the Arabs of his escort had to ride forward shouting and shaking their lances.
NOTES
[484] See Place, Ninive, vol. i. pp. 149-151, and vol. ii. pp. 6-7, and 36-42. This building is at the western angle of the area occupied by the Khorsabad ruins (vol. iii. plate 3). The restoration will be found in the plate numbered 37 bis.
[485] Discoveries, &c., pp. 348-357, 359-362; and Monuments, &c., second series, plate 5.
[486] This is now in the British Museum.—Ed.
[487] The doors are so arranged that in neither temple can the naos be seen by one standing outside the building.—Ed.
[488] This expedition took place in the eighth year of Sargon's reign. The passage in which the chief events are recounted, will be found in the long and important inscription translated by M. Oppert, under the title: Annales de Sargon (Place, Ninive, vol. ii. p. 313).
[489] The sculptor has only introduced one; the other he has left for the imagination of the spectator to fill in.
[490] Page 142.
§ 4.—Comparison between the Chaldæan Temple and that of Egypt.
Although the ancients called them both by the same name, there are more points of difference than of resemblance between the Egyptian pyramids and the staged towers of Chaldæa. On the borders of the Nile we have the true pyramid, the solid which bears that name in geometry. In Mesopotamia we have a series of rectangular prisms placed one upon the other. At a distance the gradual diminution of their size may give a pyramidal appearance to the mass of which they form a part, but their walls are vertical. Finally the contrast between the purposes of the two buildings is still greater. The Egyptian pyramid is a tomb; its enormous mass is no more than a monstrous development of the stone envelope to which the sarcophagus was committed. No means were provided for reaching the summit, and its height had, so to speak, no raison d'être or practical utility. In spite of all the art lavished upon it a pyramid was hardly a building in the proper sense of the word—it was a mere heap of building materials.
It was quite otherwise with the zigguratt, whose terminal platform supported a richly-decorated sanctuary. Astronomers could make use of it for observing the heavens under better conditions than were possible below; chapels were also cut in the flanks of its lower stages, so that a convenient means of approach to every story from top to bottom was absolutely required. This necessity brought in its train the varied arrangements of ramp and terrace of which we have endeavoured to give an idea in our restorations. If we give rein to our imagination and allow it for a moment to restore their crenellated parapets to the ramps and terraces; if we set up the resting-places, rebuild the chapels and pavilions and replace the statues; if we cover the sanctuary with its vesture of bronze and gold, and the whole edifice with the surface decoration to which the sun of Mesopotamia gave its fullest value, we shall then understand how far superior, as an architectonic conception, the Chaldæan zigguratt was to the Egyptian pyramid. With its smooth and naked face the latter was in some degree an inorganic mass, as lifeless as the corpse it crushed with its preposterous weight. The division of the former into stages had a latent rhythm that was strongly attractive; the eye followed with no little pleasure the winding slope which, by its easy gradient, seemed to invite the traveller to mount to the lofty summit, where, in the extent and beauty of the view he would find so rich a reward for the gentle fatigues of the ascent.
But we must not forget that the zigguratt was a temple, and that it is to the temples of Thebes that we must compare it. In such a comparison Egypt regains all its superiority. How cold and poor a show the towers of Chaldæa and Assyria make beside the colonnades of the Ramesseum, of Luxor, of Karnak! In the one case the only possible varieties are those caused by changes in the position and proportions of the stages, in the slope and arrangement of the ramps. In the other, what infinite combinations of courts, pylons, and porticoes, what an ever changing play of light, shadow, and form among the groves of pictured columns! What a contrast between the Assyrian sanctuaries lighted only from the door and by the yellow glare of torches, and the mysterious twilight of the Egyptian halls, where the deep shadows were broken here and there by some wandering ray of sunshine shooting downwards from holes contrived in the solid roof, and making some brilliant picture of Ptah or Amen stand out against the surrounding gloom. But the Chaldæans might, perhaps would, have equalled the Egyptians had their country been as rich in stone as the Nile valley; their taste and instinct for grandeur was no less, and the religious sentiment was as lively and exalted with the worshippers of Assur and Marduk as with those of Osiris and Amen-Ra. The inferiority of their religious architecture was due to the natural formation of their country, which restricted them almost entirely to the use of a fictile material.
END OF VOL. I.
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