[131] Place, Ninive et l'Assyrie, vol. i. p. 225. The vault of the gallery discovered by Layard in the centre of the tower that occupied a part of the mound of Nimroud was constructed in the same fashion. Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, p. 126.
[132] Place, Ninive et l'Assyrie, vol. i. pp. 211-224.
[133] Genesis xi. 3.
[134] Layard, Discoveries, pp. 506 and 531.
[135] See, for Chaldæa, Loftus, Travels and Researches, p. 133; and for Assyria, Place, Ninive et l'Assyrie, vol. i. p. 250, and vol. ii. plates 38 and 39. As an example of the varieties of section presented by these bricks, we may cite those found by M. de Sarzec in the ruins of Tello, which belonged to a circular pillar. This pillar was composed of circular bricks, placed in horizontal courses round a centre of the same material. Elsewhere triangular bricks, which must have formed the angles of buildings have been found. Taylor, Notes on the Ruins of Mugheir (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xv. p. 266). At Abou-Sharein, this same traveller found convex-sided bricks (Journal, &c., vol. xv. p. 409).
[136] Place, Ninive, &c., vol. i. p. 233.
[137] Some of these fragments are in the Louvre. They are placed on the ground in the Assyrian Gallery. Their forms are too irregular to be fitted for reproduction here. But for the hollow in question, one might suppose them to be mere shapeless boulders. Layard noticed similar remains among the ruins of Babylon, Discoveries, &c., p. 528.
[138] M. Oppert is even inclined to think that some of them came from the peninsula of Sinai and the eastern shores of Egypt (Revue Archéologique, vol. xlii. p. 272). The formation of the Arabian hills is not yet very well known, and we are not in a position to say for certain whence these rocks may have come. It seems probable however, that they might have been obtained from certain districts of Arabia, from which they could be carried without too great an effort to within reach of the canals fed by the Euphrates, or of some port trading with the Persian Gulf.
[139] Layard, Discoveries, &c., p. 528.
[140] Layard, Discoveries, p. 116.