Rich as are the results of scientific investigations in regard to the palaces of Assyria, they are deficient in everything concerning the cities, which could have been but mean and insignificant in comparison with the royal dwellings. Only scanty traces of the fortification walls around Coyundjic, Corsabad, and Nimrud have been preserved. From reliefs these appear to have been provided with projecting galleries for defence, with square or circular loop-holes, and with battlements of rectangular or oblique outline. As before mentioned, there have been preserved at Kisr-Sargon (Corsabad) the remains of a round-arched city gate, flanked with winged lions. (A skilful restoration of this is given by Viollet-le-Duc in his Entretiens.) The small hills of rubbish within the city did not tempt the closer investigation of excavators, who found such inexhaustible rewards for their labors at the palace terraces. Private dwellings, which were not, like the chambers of the kings, constructed with hewn and sculptured stones as a revetment of the weak masonry of unburnt bricks, are now in so complete a state of destruction that an understanding of their original form is hardly possible. The known reliefs are not adequate to convey satisfactory information in regard to them. Among the clearest of these is a relief of Coyundjic (Fig. 60), which shows buildings with hemispherical and oval cupolas, much like those still customary in some parts of Syria. The openings for light and air are distinctly indicated in the summit of the vaults. On the other hand, dwellings like that shown in Fig. 61, which often occur in great numbers within the enclosure of fortification walls, are of most perplexing construction, unless assumed to be tents. Some interior views indicate this character, and the surrounding walls might accordingly be considered the fortifications of an encampment. The plan-like illustrations of walled towns, where the houses are repeated in conventionalized forms, give no definite information concerning the peculiarities of Assyrian domestic architecture. (Fig. 62.) They remind us rather of the topographical usage prevalent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of our era, when, in similar manner, approximate representations of houses and cottages were typically employed to designate a village, a town, or a city, upon maps from which no conception of the nature of the structures could be obtained. But it may be concluded from these views that a majority of the dwellings consisted of a higher and a lower division, each being provided with an independent platform.
The character of Egyptian architecture was essentially influenced by the rich colored ornamentation which covered and enlivened so much of the wall-surface with the coilanaglyphic paintings peculiar to that country. Upon the palace buildings of Mesopotamia painting and sculpture were something more than mere decorative adjuncts to the architectural construction. They may even be said to have predominated. The brick walls of Nineveh, instead of bearing ornamental slabs, were themselves upheld by the richly sculptured revetment. The works of the sculptor and the painter take a more important place in the history of Assyrian art than do those of the architect. This, however, was not the case in the earliest ages of the Chaldæan empire, for monuments like the Temple of the Moon at Ur (Mugheir), and like the remains at Warka, appear to have been almost destitute of carved, if not of painted, ornamentation. The simple treatment of wall-surfaces with glazed and colored tiles, even when laid in the variegated patterns of the Chaldæan buildings, can hardly be spoken of as painting; and in that country no surely attested remains of sculpture have been discovered. Nor could the carving of stone flourish in the later Babylonian period. The remoteness from mountains and quarries of the great cities, and especially of the capital itself, which stood in the midst of an extended alluvion, was too great to allow stone material to be readily procured even for the revetment of walls. Only one fragment of a larger relief was found by Layard among the ruins of Babylon,[E] and this was so entirely similar to the Assyrian sculptures that it would, without further question, have been regarded as the work of Nineveh had not the Babylonian character of the cuneiform inscriptions indicated its origin. A colossal statue of black basalt, representing a lion standing upon a human being, a work known to travellers for over a century, still lies in position, half buried in the earth; it might convey an adequate idea of the sculpture of Babylon were it not so weathered and imperfect as not to be considered worth removal. The most numerous examples of the stone-carving of Southern Mesopotamia—that is to say, of Babylonia—are given by the cylindrical seals of syenite, basalt, agate, carnelian, etc. These stones generally measure about 0.03 m. in length and 0.01 m. in diameter; they are perforated in the line of their axis, to allow of their being strung upon a cord or fixed upon a metal wire, by which, if held as a handle, the seal could be rolled over some soft substance, such as wax, thus leaving the impression of the figures engraved upon it. (Fig. 63.) The great variance between the style of these cylinders and that of Mesopotamian reliefs is mainly due to the totally different technical peculiarities of intaglio and relief-cutting. The seals of Babylonia and Assyria are usually so much alike that they are to be distinguished only by the character of the cuneiform inscriptions, or, in some instances, by the mythological subjects represented. The origin of many of the carved cylinders which lack such indications cannot be determined, the place of their discovery being of slight importance in the case of objects so easily transportable. Numbers of these seals exist in all large European museums, being picked up by the inhabitants of Hillah after torrents of rain have furrowed the earth in which they lie concealed.
