Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Aram, Eugene" to "Arcueil" / Volume 2, Slice 4

by Various

Fig. 10.—Bas-relief of group of buildings at Kuyunjik. (After Layard.)

As there must have been nearly 700 rooms in the palace, the destination of the greater number of which it would be difficult to determine, it will be sufficient to refer only to those state rooms in which the principal sculptured slabs were found, and which decorated the lower 9 ft. of the walls. The two chief factors to be noted are (1) the great length of the halls compared with their width, the chief hall being 150 ft. long and 30 ft. wide, and (2) the immense thickness of the walls, which measured 28 ft. The only reason for walls of this thickness would be to resist the thrust of a vault, and as La Place, the French explorer, found many blocks of earth of great size, the soffits of which were covered with stucco and had apparently fallen from a height, he was led to the conclusion, now generally accepted, that these halls were vaulted. These discoveries, and the fact that in none of the palaces excavated has a single foundation of the base of any column been found, quite dispose of Fergusson’s restoration, which was based on the palaces of Persepolis. Moreover, the two climates are entirely different. In the mountainous country of Persia the breezes might be welcomed, but in Mesopotamia the heat is so intense that every precaution has to be taken to protect the inmates of the house or palace. Thick walls and vaults were a necessity in Nineveh, and even the windows or openings must have been of small dimensions. No windows have been found, nor are any shown on the bas-reliefs, except on the upper parts of towers. It is possible therefore that the light was admitted through terra-cotta pipes or cylinders, of which many were found on the site, and this is the modern system of lighting the dome in the East. Although no remains have ever been found of domes in any of the Assyrian palaces, the representation of many domical forms is given in a bas-relief found at Kuyunjik (fig. 10), suggesting that the dome was often employed to roof over their halls.

Reference has already been made to the bas-reliefs which decorated the lower portion of the great halls; the less important rooms had their walls covered with stucco and painted. Externally the architectural decoration was of the simplest kind; the lower portion of the walls was faced with stone; and the monumental portals, in addition to the winged bulls which flanked them, had deep archivolts in coloured enamels on glazed brick, with figures and rosettes in bright colours. A similar decoration would seem to have been applied to the crenellated battlements, which crowned all the exterior walls, as also those of the courts. The buttresses inside the courts, and the towers which flanked the chief entrance, were decorated with vertical semicircular mouldings of brick. This system of decoration is also found in the ziggurats or observatories behind the harem, where the three lower storeys still exist. A winding ramp was carried round this tower, the storeys of which were set back one behind the other, the burnt brick paving of the ramp and the crenellated battlements forming a parapet, portions of which are still in situ.

Although not unknown in either Chaldaea or Assyria, the stone column, according to Perrot and Chipiez, found no place in those structures of crude brick of which the real architecture of Mesopotamia consisted. Only one example in stone, in which the shaft and capital together are 3 ft. 4 in. in height, has been found. Two bases of similar design to the capital are supposed to have supported wooden columns carrying an awning. There are representations in the bas-reliefs of kiosks in a garden, the columns in which, with volute capitals, are supposed to have been of wood sheathed in metal, and on the bronze bands of the Balawat gates in the British Museum are representations of the interior of a house with wood columns and bracket capitals, and several awnings carried by posts. Small windows are shown in some of the bas-reliefs, with balustrades of small columns, which were doubtless copied from the ivory plaques found at Nimrud and now in the British Museum.

(R. P. S.)

Persian Architecture

The origin of Persian architecture must be sought for in that of the two earlier dynasties,—the Assyrian and Median, to whose empire the Persian monarchy succeeded by conquest in 560 B.C. From the former, it borrowed the raised platform on which their palaces were built, the broad flights of steps leading up to them and the winged human-headed bulls which flank the portals of the propylaea. From Media it would seem to have derived the great halls of columns and the porticoes of the palaces, so clearly described by Polybius (x. 24) as existing at Ecbatana; the principal difference being that the columns of the stoas and peristyle, which there consisted of cedar and cypress covered with silver plates, were in the Persian palaces built of stone. The ephemeral nature of the one material, and the intrinsic value of the other, are sufficient to account for their entire disappearance; but as Ecbatana was occupied by Darius and Xerxes as one of their principal cities, the stone column, bases and capitals, which still exist there, may be regarded as part of the restoration and rebuilding of the palace; and as they are similar to those found at Persepolis and Susa, it is fair to assume that the source of the first inspiration of Persian architecture came from the Medians, especially as Cyrus, the first king, was brought up at the court of Astyages, the last Median monarch.

The earliest Persian palace, of which but scanty remains have been found, was built at Pasargadae by Cyrus. There is sufficient, however, to show that it was of the simplest kind, and consisted of a central hall, the roof of which was carried by two rows of stone columns, 30 ft. high, and porticoes in antis on two if not on three sides.

The great platform, also at Pasargadae, known as the Takht-i-Suleiman, or throne of Solomon, covered an area of about 40,000 sq. ft., and is remarkable for the beauty of its masonry and the large stones of which it is built. These are all sunk round the edge, being the earliest example of what is known as “drafted masonry,” which at Jerusalem and Hebron gives so magnificent an effect to the great walls of the temple enclosures. No remains have ever been traced on this platform of the palace which it was probably built to support.

Fig. 11.