Part 15 (2/2)

From many of the ill.u.s.trations we have given, it will be seen that the Ninevite architects had no objection to windows, provided they could be placed in the upper part of the wall. It is of windows like ours, pierced at a foot or two above the ground, that no examples have been found.

[228] PLACE. _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 312-314.

[229] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 313.

[230] _Ibid._ p. 310

[231] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 311.

[232] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 307.

[233] See BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 53; _Place_, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 306, 307.

[234] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 15.

[235] TAYLOR, _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv. p. 409.

[236] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 260.

[237] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, pp. 645-6.

[238] LAYARD, _Monuments_, &c., first series, plate 19. This relief is reproduced in PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 40, fig. 6.

[239] British Museum; Kouyundjik Gallery, Nos. 34-43. See also LAYARD'S _Monuments_, plates 8 and 9.--ED.

[240] A second inclined gallery of the same kind was found by LAYARD in another of the Kouyundjik palaces (_Discoveries_, p. 650).

[241] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 306, 307.

[242] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 140.

[243] As to the great size sometimes reached by the tents of the Arab chiefs, and the means employed to divide them into several apartments, see LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 313, and the sketch on page 321.

[244] There is a photographic reproduction of these interesting reliefs in the fine publication undertaken by the Society of Biblical Archaeology. This work, which is not yet (1883) complete, is ent.i.tled _The Bronze Ornaments of the Gates of Balawat_, _Shalmaneser_ II. 859-825, edited, with an introduction, by Samuel BIRCH, with descriptions and translations by Theophilus G. PINCHES, folio, London. The three first parts are before us.

The motive reproduced above belongs to the plate marked F, 5.

[245] They are to be found on the sheet provisionally numbered B, 1, in the publication above referred to.

[246] This cylinder, which is now in the British Museum, was perhaps the actual signet of the king.

[247] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 272.

[248] LAYARD, _Monuments of Nineveh_, first series, plate 77; second series, plates 24 and 36.

[249] _Genesis_, xiii. 12.

[250] _Genesis_, xix.

-- 4.--_The Column._

As Chaldaea, speaking broadly, made no use of stone in its buildings, the stone column or shaft was unknown to its architects; at least not a single fragment of such a thing has been found among the ruins. Here and there cylindrical piers built up of small units seem to have been employed. These are sometimes of specially moulded bricks,[251] sometimes of sandstone fragments supported by a coat of masonry. Time has separated the stones of the latter, and it is now only represented by fragments whose shape betrays their original destination. Taylor, indeed, found one of these piers still in place during his excavations at Abou-Sharein, but his sketch and description are so confused that it is quite useless to reproduce them.[252]

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