70. Central Palace, Koyunjik. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
The architectural details also display a degree of elegance and an amount of elaborate finish not usually found in the earlier examples, as is well illustrated by the Woodcut No. [71], representing one of the pavement slabs of the palace. It is of the same design, and similarly ornamented, but the finish is better, and the execution more elaborate, than in any of the more ancient examples we are acquainted with.
Besides these, there were on the mound at Nimroud a central palace built by Tiglath Pileser, and one at the south-eastern angle of the mound, built by a grandson of Esarhaddon; but both are too much ruined for its being feasible to trace either their form or extent. Around the great pyramid, at the north-west angle of the mound, were buildings more resembling temples than any others on it—all the sculptures upon them pointing apparently to devotional purposes, though in form they differed but little from the palaces. At the same time there is certainly nothing in them to indicate that the mound at the base of which they were situated was appropriated to the dead, or to funereal purposes. Between the north-west and south-west palaces there was also raised a terrace higher than the rest, on which were situated some chambers, the use of which it is not easy to determine.
71. Pavement Slab from the Central Palace, Koyunjik.
Notwithstanding the impossibility that now exists of making out all the details of the buildings situated on the great mounds of Nimroud and Koyunjik, it is evident that these great groups of buildings must have ranked among the most splendid monuments of antiquity, surrounded as they were by stone-faced terraces, and approached on every side by noble flights of stairs. When all the palaces with their towers and temples were seen gay with colour, and crowded with all the state and splendour of an Eastern monarch, they must have formed a scene of such dazzling magnificence that one can easily comprehend how the inhabitants of the little cities of Greece or Judea were betrayed into such extravagant hyperbole when speaking of the size and splendour of the great cities of Assyria.
72. Pavilion, from the Sculptures at Khorsabad.
The worst feature of all this splendour was its ephemeral character—though perhaps it is owing to this very fact that we now know so much about it—for, like the reed that bends to the storm and recovers its elasticity, while the oak is snapped by its violence, these relics of a past age have retained to some extent their pristine beauty. Had these buildings been constructed like those of the Egyptians, their remains would probably have been applied to other purposes long ago; but having been overwhelmed so early and forgotten, they have been preserved to our day; nor is it difficult to see how this has occurred. The pillars that supported the roof being of wood, probably of cedar, and the beams on the under side of the roof being of the same material, nothing was easier than to set fire to them. The fall of the roofs, which were probably composed, as at the present day, of five or six feet of earth, and which is requisite to keep out heat as well as wet, would alone suffice to bury the building up to the height of the sculptures. The gradual crumbling of the thick walls consequent on their unprotected exposure to the atmosphere would add three or four feet to this: so that it is hardly too much to suppose that green grass might have been growing over the buried palaces of Nineveh before two or three years had elapsed from the time of their destruction and desertion. When once this had taken place, the mounds afforded far too tempting positions not to be speedily occupied by the villages of the natives; and a few centuries of mud-hut building would complete the process of entombment so completely as to protect the hidden remains perfectly for the centuries during which they have lain buried. These have now been recovered to such an extent as enables us to restore their form almost as certainly as we can those of the temples of Greece or Rome, or of any of the great nations of antiquity.