The parapets of the towers were corbelled out from their walls and pierced with loopholes, as we know from the reliefs. Each doorway was flanked by a pair of towers, the wall between them being only wide enough for the entrance. Our Plate V. will give a very exact idea of the general appearance of the whole enceinte. Including those of the palace mound, it has been calculated that the city of Sargon had one hundred and sixty-seven towers. Was there a ditch about the wall like that at Babylon? We are tempted to say yes to this, especially when we remember the statement of Herodotus that the earth taken from the ditch served to afford materials for the wall. Moreover such a ditch could have been easily kept full of water by means of the two mountain streams that flow past the mound. But the explorers tell us they could find no trace of such a ditch.[86] If it ever existed it has now been so completely filled up that no vestige remains.
Upon each of its south-eastern, south-western and north-eastern faces the city wall was pierced with two gates. One of these, decorated with sculptures and glazed bricks, is called by Place the porte ornée, or state entrance, the other, upon which no such ornament appears, he calls the porte simple. On the north-western face there is only a porte simple, the palace mound taking the place of the state gateway. The plinth and the lower courses of burnt brick are continued up to the arches of these gates; the latter are also raised upon a kind of mound which lifts them about eight and a half feet above the level of the plain.
In size and general arrangement these gateways were repetitions of each other. Our Figs. 50 in the first volume, 24 and 25 in this, show severally the present condition, the plan and the restored elevation of a porte simple.
Fig. 24.—Plan of one of the ordinary gates at Khorsabad; from Place.
The entrance was covered by an advanced work, standing out some eighty-three feet into the plain. Each angle of this sort of barbican was protected by a low tower, about forty feet wide. Through the centre of the curtain uniting these towers there is a first vaulted passage, leading to a large courtyard (A in Fig. 24), beyond which are the space (B) between the great flanking towers of the gate proper and the long vaulted passage (C—G) which gives access to the town. This passage is not a uniform tunnel. The mass through which it runs is 290 feet thick, and in two places it is crossed at right angles by transepts wider than itself (D and F). The tunnel ends in a kind of open vestibule interposed between the inner face of the wall and the commencement of the street. All these courts, passages and transepts are paved with large limestone slabs except the small chamber that opens from one end of the outer transept (I). This small apartment was not a thoroughfare, but it has been thought that signs of a staircase leading either to upper rooms or to the battlements could be traced in it. We have seen that the Egyptian pylons had such staircases and upper chambers.[87] It would be curious to find the arrangement repeated here, but we cannot certainly say that it was so. On the other hand the situation of the doors by which the entrance into the city was barred is very clearly marked. At the point where the passage C opens into the transept D the sockets in which the metal feet of the door pivots were set, are still in place.[88]
Fig. 25.—Restoration in perspective of one of the ordinary gates of Khorsabad; from Place.
The state doorways are distinguished from their more humble companions, in the first place by a flight of eleven brick-built steps which have to be mounted before the court A can be reached from the outside; in the ordinary gateways a gentle inclination of the whole pavement of the court makes such steps unnecessary. A second difference is of more importance. At the entrance to the passage marked C on our plan the state doorways have a pair of winged bulls whose foreparts stand out a little from the wall while their backs support the arch. The latter is decorated with the semicircle of enamelled bricks of which we have already spoken at length in our chapter upon decoration (Vol. I., Figs. 123 and 124, and below, Fig. 26). Behind the bulls there are two winged genii facing each other across the passage and about thirteen feet high (Fig. 27).
