Fig. 108.—Altar in the Louvre. Height 32 inches.[320]
A third type is to be found in an altar from Nimroud, now in the British Museum ([Fig. 109]); it dates from the reign of Rammanu-nirari, who appears to have lived in the first half of the eighth century before our era.[321] The rolls at each end of this altar are very curious and seem to be the prototype of a form with which the Græco-Roman sarcophagi have made us familiar.
Fig. 109.—Altar in the British Museum. Height 22 inches, length at base 22 inches.
Fig. 110.—Stele from Khorsabad. Plan and elevation; from Place. The various kinds of steles are also very interesting. The most remarkable of all is one discovered at Khorsabad by M. Place ([Fig. 110]). The shaft is composed of a series of perpendicular bands alternately flat and concave, exactly similar to the flutes of the Ionic order. The summit is crowned by a plume of palm leaves rising from a double scroll, like two consoles placed horizontally and head to head. The grace and slenderness of this stele are in strong contrast to the usually short and heavy forms affected by the Assyrian architects, especially when they worked in stone. It is difficult to say what its destination may have been. It was discovered lying in the centre of an outer court surrounded by offices and other subordinate buildings; it has neither figure nor inscription.[322] The base was quite rough and shapeless, and must have been sunk into the soil of the court, so that the flutes began at the level of the pavement. M. Place suggests that it may have been a milliarium, from which all the roads of the empire were measured. We do not know that there is a single fact to support such an unnecessary guess.
The stele of which we have been speaking is unique, but of another peculiarly Assyrian type there is no lack of examples, namely, of that to which the name obelisk has, with some want of discrimination, been applied. The Assyrian monoliths so styled are much shorter in their proportions than the lofty "needles" of Egypt, while their summits, instead of ending in a sharp pyramidion, are "stepped" and crowned with a narrow plateau. ([Fig. 111]). These monoliths were never very imposing in size, the tallest is hardly more than ten feet high.