81. Obelisk of Divanubara. (From Layard’s ‘Nineveh.’)
The whole now rises to a height of about 120 ft. from the plain, and is composed of sun-dried bricks, with courses of kiln-burnt bricks between them, at certain intervals towards the summit, which render it probable that it originally was not a pyramid in the usual sense of the term, but a square tower, rising in three or four storeys, each less than the lower one, as in the traditional temple of Belus at Babylon, or like the summit of the obelisk represented in the woodcut (No. [81]), which most probably is a monolithic reproduction of such a sepulchral tower as this, rather than an obelisk like those of Egypt.
Other obelisks have since been discovered, some of which look even more like miniature models of structural buildings than this one does.
Till further information is obtained, it will hardly be possible to say much that is satisfactory with regard to either the tombs, temples, or minor antiquities of the Assyrian people. Their architecture was essentially Palatial—as that of the Greeks was Templar—and to that alone our remarks might almost be confined. Fortunately, however, sculpture was another art to which they were specially addicted, and to their passion for this we owe most of our knowledge of their manners and customs. To this art also we are indebted for our ability to restore many details of their palaces and buildings, which without its aid would have been altogether unintelligible.
Judged by the same rules of criticism which we apply to Classic or Mediæval art, the architecture of the Assyrians must, it is feared, rank very low. But for gorgeous Barbaric splendour of effect it seems difficult to imagine anything that could well have been grander or more imposing than the palaces of Nineveh must have been when entire and filled with the state and magnificence of the monarchs of the Assyrian empire.
CHAPTER IV.
PERSIA.
CHRONOLOGY.
| DATES. | |
| Cyrus founds Pasargadæ | B.C. 560 |
| Cambyses’ buildings at ditto | 525 |
| Darius builds palace at Persepolis | 521 |
| Xerxes builds halls at Persepolis and Susa | 485 |
| Artaxerxes Longimanus | 465 |
| Darius Nothus | 424 |
| Artaxerxes Mnemon repairs buildings at Persepolis and Susa | 405 |
| Destruction of Persian Empire by Alexander | 331 |