In 538 the empire fell before the Persians.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF MONUMENTS. Recent excavations at Nippur (Niffer), the sacred city of Chaldæa, have uncovered ruins older than the Pyramids. Though of slight importance architecturally, they reveal the early knowledge of the arch and the possession of an advanced culture. The poverty of the building materials of this region afforded only the most limited resources for architectural effect. Owing to the flatness of the country and the impracticability of building lofty structures with sun-dried bricks, elevation above the plain could be secured only by erecting buildings of moderate height upon enormous mounds or terraces, built of crude brick and faced with hard brick or stone. This led to the development of the stepped pyramid as the typical form of Chaldæo-Assyrian architecture. Thick walls were necessary both for stability and for protection from the burning heat of that climate. The lack of stone for columns and the difficulty of procuring heavy beams for long spans made broad halls and chambers impossible. The plans of Assyrian palaces look like assemblages of long corridors and small cells (Fig. 18). Neither the wooden post nor the column played any part in this architecture except for window-mullions and subordinate members.[5]
It is probable that the vault was used for roofing many of the halls; the arch was certainly employed for doors and the barrel-vault for the drainage-tunnels under the terraces, made necessary by the heavy rainfall. What these structures lacked in durability and height was made up in decorative magnificence. The interior walls were wainscoted to a height of eight or nine feet with alabaster slabs covered with those low-relief pictures of hunting scenes, battles, and gods, which now enrich the museums of London, Paris, and other modern cities. Elsewhere painted plaster or more durable enamelled tile in brilliant colors embellished the walls, and, doubtless, rugs and tapestries added their richness to this architectural splendor.
FIG. 18.—PALACE OF SARGON AT KHORSABAD.
CHALDÆAN ARCHITECTURE. The ruins at Mugheir (the Biblical Ur), dating, perhaps, from 2200 B.C., belong to the two-storied terrace or platform of a temple to Sin or Hurki. The wall of sun-dried brick is faced with enamelled tile. The shrine, which was probably small, has wholly disappeared from the summit of the mound. At Warka (the ancient Erech) are two terrace-walls of palaces, one of which is ornamented with convex flutings and with a species of mosaic in checker patterns and zigzags, formed by terra-cotta cones or spikes driven into the clay, their exposed bases being enamelled in the desired colors. The other shows a system of long, narrow panels, in a style suggesting the influence of Egyptian models through some as yet unknown channel. This panelling became a common feature of the later Assyrian art (see Fig. 19). At Birs-Nimroud are the ruins of a stepped pyramid surmounted by a small shrine. Its seven stages are said to have been originally faced with glazed tile of the seven planetary colors, gold, silver, yellow, red, blue, white, and black. The ruins at Nippur, which comprise temples, altars, and dwellings dating from 4000 B.C., have been alluded to. Babylon, the later capital of Chaldæa, to which the shapeless mounds of Mujehbeh and Kasr seem to have belonged, has left no other recognizable vestige of its ancient magnificence.
ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. Abundant ruins exist of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, and its adjacent palace-sites. Excavations at Koyunjik, Khorsabad, and Nimroud have laid bare a number of these royal dwellings. Among them are the palace of Assur-nazir-pal (885 B.C.) and two palaces of Shalmaneser II.
(850 B.C.
) at Nimroud; the great palace of Sargon at Khorsabad (721 B.C.