[66]. When the ‘Handbook of Architecture’ was published in 1855, there existed no data from which these affinities could be traced. It is to the explorations of Sir Henry Rawlinson and Messrs. Taylor and Loftus that we owe what we now know on the subject; but even that is only an instalment.
[67]. The chronology here given is based on the various papers communicated by Sir Henry Rawlinson to the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. x. et seq., and to the ‘Athenæum’ journal. The whole has been abstracted and condensed in his brother’s ‘Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient world;’ from which work the tables here given are taken in an abridged form.
[68]. Loftus, ‘Chaldæa and Babylonia,’ p. 167.
[69]. Journal R. A. S., vol. xv. p. 260, et seq.
[70]. Journal R. A. S., vol. xviii. p. i, et seq., Sir H. Rawlinson’s paper, from which all the information here given regarding the Birs is obtained.
[71]. Flandin and Coste, ‘Voyage en Perse,’ vol. iv. pl. 221.
[72]. I have ventured to restore the roof of the cella with a sikra (ziggur or ziggurah, according to Rawlinson’s ‘Five Ancient Monarchies,’ vol. I, p. 395, et passim), from finding similar roofs at Susa, Bagdad, Keffeli, &c. They are certainly indigenous, and borrowed from some older type, whether exactly what is represented here is not clear, it must be confessed. It is offered as a suggestion, the reason for which will be given when we come to speak of Buddhist or Saracenic architecture.
[73]. Rich gives its dimensions: On the north, 600 feet; south, 657; east, 546; and west, 408. But it is so ruinous that only an average guess can be made at its original dimensions. [Mr. George Smith, in the ‘Athenæum’ of February 1876, wrote a letter giving an account of a tablet of the Temple of Belus at Babylon he had deciphered, which constitutes the only description found giving the dimensions thereof. The bottom stage was 300 feet square and 110 feet high, the second, with raking sides, 260 feet square and 60 feet high, the third 200 feet square and 20 feet high, the fourth, fifth, and sixth each 20 feet high and 170, 140, and 110 feet respectively. The top stage, which was the sanctuary, was 80 × 70 feet and 50 feet high, the whole height being thus 300 feet, the same as the width of the base. Mr. W. R. Lethaby, in his work on ‘Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth,’ gives as a frontispiece a restoration according to these dimensions, the appearance of which is more impressive and probably approaches more closely to the actual proportions of a ziggurat than any previously published, excepting that at Khorsabad, with which in general proportion it coincides.—Ed.]
[74]. Strabo, xvi. p. 738.
[75]. There is a slight discrepancy in the measures owing to the absence of fractions in the calculation.