| Fig. 13, a.—Capital of large Column. (Place, Nineve, Pl. 35.) | Fig. 13, b.—Capital of small Column. (Brit. Mus.) |
Of remains of actual columns, the best-preserved is probably that discovered by Victor Place at Khorsabad; it comprises the capital and a portion of the shaft (cf. Fig. [13], a) both in one piece; it is made of limestone, and the surviving fragment is some forty inches high. The decoration of the capital proper is a variety of the volute, a device which probably originated in a more or less accurate imitation of the horns of the goat, and which is a characteristic feature of Babylonian and Assyrian decoration.
| Fig. 14.—A, | cf. Layard Discoveries, p. 590. |
| B, | cf. Layard, Mon, Ser. I, Pl. 95. |
| C, | cf. Botta, Ruines de Ninive, II, p. 114. |
| D, E, | Bas-reliefs from Kouyunjik. |
Sometimes columns represented on the bas-reliefs are actually surmounted by goats (cf. Fig. [14], G) but more often, the horn-shaped volutes (cf. Fig. [14], F) are the only artistic elements borrowed by the Assyrians from the animal world, in the formation of their column capitals. A variety of the same design is seen on the four circular limestone pedestals discovered by Layard at Nineveh[78] (cf. Fig. [14], A) which doubtless at one time supported wooden pillars; the diameter of these bases varied from eleven and a half inches in the narrowest to two feet seven inches in the broadest part.
Sometimes the backs of lions (cf. Fig. [14], E), sphinxes or other composite monsters formed the bases of columns, and two such bases in the form of winged sphinxes were found by Layard in the south-west palace at Nimrûd, but they were in such a state of decay that they crumbled soon after excavation, though not before Layard was able to take a sketch of one of them (cf. Fig. [14], B).
An interesting example of a capital of a column is the small stone capital preserved in the British Museum (cf. Fig. [13], b). It probably formed the upper part of one of the diminutive columns adorning a balustrade, and doubtless when complete was a more or less faithful miniature replica of the full-sized capital discovered by Place (Fig. [13], a).
Until recently, owing to the fact that the columns portrayed on Assyrian bas-reliefs, and also the scant remains of actual columns which had been recovered, yielded no examples of shafts other than round,[79] or possibly square (cf. Fig. [14], C) it was thought that polygonal-shafted columns were unknown, but the German excavations at Ashur have brought to light a capital of a column made of black basalt,[80] together with a portion of the shaft which is sixteen-sided, and probably belongs to about the time of Tiglath-Pileser I (1100 B.C.).