); that of Sennacherib at Koyunjik (704 B.C.); of Esarhaddon at Nimroud (650 B.C.); and of Assur-bani-pal at Koyunjik (660 B.C.). All of these palaces are designed on the same general principle, best shown by the plan (Fig. 18) of the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad, excavated by Botta and Place.
In this palace two large and several smaller courts are surrounded by a complex series of long, narrow halls and small, square chambers. One court probably belonged to the harem, another to the king’s apartments, others to dependents and to the service of the palace. The crude brick walls are immensely thick and without windows, the only openings being for doors. The absence of columns made wide halls impossible, and great size could only be attained in the direction of length. A terraced pyramid supported an altar or shrine to the southwest of the palace; at the west corner was a temple, the substructure of which was crowned by a cavetto cornice showing plainly the influence of Egyptian models. The whole palace stood upon a stupendous platform faced with cut stone, an unaccustomed extravagance in Assyria.
FIG. 19.—GATE, KHORSABAD.
ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS. There is no evidence that the Assyrians ever used columnar supports except in minor or accessory details. There are few halls in any of the ruins too wide to be spanned by good Syrian cedar beams or palm timbers, and these few cases seem to have had vaulted ceilings. So clumsy a feature as the central wall in the great hall of Esarhaddon’s palace at Nimroud would never have been resorted to for the support of the ceiling, had the Assyrians been familiar with the use of columns. That they understood the arch and vault is proved by their admirable terrace-drains and the fine arched gate in the walls of Khorsabad (Fig. 19), as well as by bas-reliefs representing dwellings with domes of various forms. Moreover, a few vaulted chambers of moderate size, and fallen fragments of crude brick vaulting of larger span, have been found in several of the Assyrian ruins.
The construction was extremely simple. The heavy clay walls were faced with alabaster, burned brick, or enamelled tiles. The roofs were probably covered with stamped earth, and sometimes paved on top with tiles or slabs of alabaster to form terraces. Light was introduced most probably through windows immediately under the roof and divided by small columns forming mullions, as suggested by certain relief pictures. No other system seems consistent with the windowless walls of the ruins. It is possible that many rooms depended wholly on artificial light or on the scant rays coming through open doors. To this day, in the hot season the population of Mosul takes refuge from the torrid heats of summer in windowless basements lighted only by lamps.
ORNAMENT. The only structural decorations seem to have been the panelling of exterior walls in a manner resembling the Chaldæan terrace-walls, and a form of parapet like a stepped cresting. There were no characteristic mouldings, architraves, capitals, or cornices. Nearly all the ornament was of the sort called applied, i.e., added after the completion of the structure itself. Pictures in low relief covered the alabaster revetment. They depicted hunting-scenes, battles, deities, and other mythological subjects, and are interesting to the architect mainly for their occasional representations of buildings and details of construction. Above this wainscot were friezes of enamelled brick ornamented with symbolic forms used as decorative motives; winged bulls, the “sacred tree” and mythological monsters, with rosettes, palmettes, lotus-flowers, and guilloches (ornaments of interlacing bands winding about regularly spaced buttons or eyes). These ornaments were also used on the archivolts around the great arches of palace gates. The most singular adornments of these gates were the carved “portal guardians” set into the deep jambs—colossal monsters with the bodies of bulls, the wings of eagles, and human heads of terrible countenance. Of mighty bulk, they were yet minutely wrought in every detail of head-dress, beard, feathers, curly hair, and anatomy.
