[CHAPTER IV]
Art, Literature, and Science
Assyrian art was, speaking generally, imported from Babylonia. Even the palace of the king was built of bricks, and raised upon a mound like the palaces and temples of Babylonia, although stone was plentiful in Assyria, and there was no marshy plain where inundations might be feared. It was only the walls that were lined with sculptured slabs of alabaster, the sculptures taking the place of the paintings in vermilion, which adorned the houses of Babylonia (Ezek. xxiii. 14).
It is at Khorsabad, or Dur-Sargon, the city built by Sargon, to the north of Nineveh, that we can best study the architectural genius of Assyria. The city was laid out in the form of a square, and surrounded by walls forty-six feet thick and over a mile in length each way, the angles of which faced the four cardinal points. The outer wall was flanked with eight tall towers, and was erected on a mound of rubble.
On the north-west side stood the royal palace, defended also by a wall of its own, and built on a [T]-shaped platform. It was approached through an outer court, the gates of which were hung under arches of enamelled brick, and guarded by colossal figures in stone. From the court an inclined plane led to the first terrace, occupied by a number of small rooms, in which the French excavators saw the barracks of the palace-guard. Above this terrace rose a second, at a height of about ten feet, upon which was built the royal palace itself. This was entered through a gateway, on either side of which stood the stone figure of a 'cherub,' while within it was a court 350 feet long and 170 feet wide. Beyond this court was an inner one, which formed a square of 150 feet. On its left were the royal chambers, consisting of a suite of ten rooms, and beyond them again the private chapel of the monarch, leading to the apartments in which he commonly lived. On the west side of the palace rose a tower, built in stages, on the summit of which was the royal observatory.
It is a question whether the Assyrian palace possessed any upper stories. On the whole, probability speaks against it. Columns, however, were used plentifully. The column, in fact, had been a Babylonian invention, and originated in the necessity of supporting buildings on wooden pillars in a country where there was no stone. From Babylonia columnar architecture passed into Assyria, where it assumed exaggerated forms, the column being sometimes made to rest on the backs of lions, dogs, and winged bulls.
The apertures which served as windows were protected by heavy folds of tapestry, that kept out the heats of summer and the cold winds of winter. In warm weather, however, the inmates of the house preferred to sit in the open air, either in the airy courts upon which its chambers opened, or under the shady trees of the paradeisos or park attached to the dwellings of the rich. The leases of houses let or sold in Nineveh in the time of the Second Assyrian Empire generally make mention of the 'shrubbery,' which formed part of the property.