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.
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.
The Assyrian obelisks were of greater importance; though they cannot be compared to the gigantic wonders of Egyptian mechanical skill, they yet represent the typical forms of Assyrian art as characteristically as do the Egyptian shafts the architecture of that land. A small specimen carved in black basalt, 2.1 m. high and 0.6 m. broad at base, was discovered in Nimrud and has been transported to the British Museum. (Fig. 59.) The gently diminished pier is crowned with a terraced pyramid, thus giving the principal monumental form of Mesopotamia, on a small scale, as distinctly as the termination of Egyptian obelisks does the more strictly geometrical pyramid of the Nile land. The steps and part of the shaft are carved with cuneiform inscriptions, and with reliefs which represent an act of homage—the presentation to the king of various gifts, animals, etc.