Part 11 (1/2)

[158] According to the personal experience of M. Place, the ancient arrangements were more suited to the climate of this country than the modern ones that have taken their place. The overpowering heat from which the inhabitants of modern Mossoul suffer so greatly is largely owing to the unintelligent employment of stone and plaster in the construction of dwellings. During his stay in that town the thermometer sometimes rose, in his apartments, to 51 Centigrade (90 Fahrenheit). The mean temperature of a summer's day was from 40 to 42 Centigrade (from 72 to about 76 Fahrenheit).

[159] See LAYARD, _Monuments of Nineveh_, 2nd series, plates 21 and 40.

[160] The _serdab_ is a kind of cellar, the walls and floor of which are drenched periodically with water, which, by its evaporation, lowers the temperature by several degrees.

[161] The town represented on the sculptured slab here reproduced is not a.s.syrian but Phoenician; it affords data, however, which may be legitimately used in the restoration of the upper part of an a.s.syrian palace. We can hardly believe that the Mesopotamian artists, in ill.u.s.trating the wars of the a.s.syrian kings, copied servilely the real features of the conquered towns. They had no sketches by ”special artists”

to guide their chisels. They were told that a successful campaign had been fought in the marshes of the lower Euphrates, or in some country covered with forests of date trees, and these they had no difficulty in representing because they had examples before their eyes; so too, when buildings were in question, we may fairly conclude that they borrowed their motives from the architecture with which they were familiar.

[162] See the _History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. pp. 77-84.

[163] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 112; GEO. SMITH, _a.s.syrian Discoveries_, p.

341.

-- 3.--_Construction._

As might have been expected nothing that can be called a structure of dressed stone has been discovered in Chaldaea;[164] in a.s.syria alone have some examples been found. Of these the most interesting, and the most carefully studied and described are the walls of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad.

Even there stone was only employed to case the walls in which the mound was inclosed--a cuira.s.s of large blocks carefully dressed and fixed seemed to give solidity to the ma.s.s, and at the same time we know by the arrangement of the blocks that the outward appearance of the wall was by no means lost sight of. All those of a single course were of one height but of different depths and widths, and the arrangement followed a regular order like that shown in Fig. 46. Their external face was carefully dressed.[165]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 44.--Plan of angle, Khorsabad; from Place.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 45.--Section of wall through AB in Fig. 44; from Place.]

The courses consist, on plan, of ”stretchers” and ”headers.” We borrow from Place the plan of an angle (Fig. 44), a section (Fig. 45), and an elevation (Fig. 46). Courses are always horizontal and joints properly bound. The freestone blocks at the foot of the wall are very large. The stretchers are six feet eight inches thick, the same wide, and nine feet long. They weigh about twenty-three tons. It is astonis.h.i.+ng to find the a.s.syrians, who were very rapid builders, choosing such heavy and unmanageable materials.

The supporting wall became gradually thinner towards the top, each course being slightly set back from the one below it on the inner face (see Fig.

45). This arrangement is general with these retaining-walls. The average diminution is from seven to ten feet at the base, to from three to six at the top.

The constructor showed no less skill in the use he made of his stretchers and headers. They not only gave him an opportunity of safely diminis.h.i.+ng the weight of his structure and economising his materials, they afforded a ready means of adapting his wall exactly to the work it had to do. The headers penetrated farther into the crude ma.s.s within than the stretchers, and gave to the junction of the two surfaces a solidity similar to that derived by a wall from its through stones or perpenders.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 46.--Elevation of wall, Khorsabad; from Place.]

In describing this wall, M. Place also calls attention to the care with which the angles are built. ”The first course,” he says, ”is composed of three 'headers' with their shortest side outwards and their length engaged in the ma.s.s behind. Two of these stones lie parallel to each other, the third crosses their inner extremities.”[166] Thanks to this ingenious arrangement, the weakest and most exposed part of the wall is capable of resisting any attack.

The surface in contact with the core of crude brick was only roughly dressed, by which means additional cohesion was given to the junction of the two materials; but the other sides were carefully worked and squared and fixed in place by simple juxtaposition. The architect calculated upon sufficient solidity being given by the mere weight of the stones and the perfection of their surfaces.[167]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 47.--Section in perspective through the south-western part of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad; compiled from Place.]

The total height of this Khorsabad wall was sixty feet--nine feet for the foundations, forty-six for the retaining-wall, and five for the parapet, for the wall did not stop at the level of the roofs. A row of battlements was thought necessary both as a slight fortification and as an ornament.[168] These were finished at the top with open crenellations in brick, along the base of which ran apparently a frieze of painted rosettes.

A reference to our Fig. 47 will explain all these arrangements better than words. It is a bird's-eye view in perspective of the south-western part of the palace. The vertical sections on the right of the engraving show how the stones were bonded to the crude brick. The crenellations are omitted here, but they may be seen in place on the left.

The great size of the stones and the regularity of the masonry, the height of the wall and the long line of battlements with which it was crowned, the contrast between the brilliant whiteness of its main surface and the bright colours of the painted frieze that, we have supposed, defined its summit--all this made up a composition simple enough, but by no means devoid of beauty and grandeur.

In the _enceinte_ surrounding the town, stone was also employed, but in a rather different fas.h.i.+on. It was used to give strength to the foot of the wall, which consisted of a limestone plinth nearly four feet high, surmounted by a ma.s.s of crude brick, rising to a total height of about forty-four feet. Its thickness was eighty feet. The bed of stone upon which the brick rested was made up of two retaining walls with a core of rubble.

In the former, large blocks, carefully dressed and fixed, were used; in the latter, pieces of broken stone thrown together pell-mell, except towards the top, where they were so placed as to present a smooth surface, upon which the first courses of brick could safely rest.[169]

When Xenophon crossed a.s.syria with the ”ten thousand,” he noticed this method of constructing city walls, but in all the _enceintes_ that attracted his attention, the height of the plinth was much greater than that of Khorsabad. At Larissa it was twenty, and at Mespila fifty feet, or respectively a fifth and a third of the total height of the walls.[170]

These figures can only be looked upon as approximate. The Greeks did not amuse themselves, we may be sure, with measuring the monuments they encountered on their march, even if Tissaphernes gave them time. But we may fairly conclude from this evidence that in some of the a.s.syrian town-walls the proportion between the plinth and the superstructure was very different from what it is in the only example that has come down to us.