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But one of M. Place's architectural discoveries seems to make it possible, or even probable, that a real feature in Assyrian building is here represented M. Place found the arch of the town gateway which he exhumed at Khorsabad to spring from the backs of the two bulls which guarded it on either side.
It never became very abrupt however, as supposing that the original number of stories was seven, the gradient would not be more than about one in fourteen close to the summit. The position occupied by this staged tower in the plan of the royal palace at Khorsabad suggests that perhaps neither of the two explanations of its purpose here alluded to is the true one.
M. Oppert tells us that during the summer of 1854, "M. Place disinterred from the foundations of Khorsabad a stone case in which were five inscriptions on five different materials, gold, silver, antimony, copper and lead. Of these five tablets he brought away four.
As M. Place says, when we examine the plans of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad we are as much astonished at the size of the doorways as at the thickness of the walls.
All the objects found in the neighbourhood of Lake Van are purely Assyrian in character, and no question is raised as to the fitness of their place in our museums side by side with objects from Nimroud and Khorsabad.
These volutes again may have supported double bulls, which would make the total height of the columns the same as those of the east and west porticoes. The doorways have cornices enriched with leaves, similar to those found at Khorsabad, which have already been noticed as bearing a decided resemblance to the Egyptian doorways.
Internally they were, in every case, constructed of crude brick; while externally it was common to face them with hewn stone, either from top to bottom, or at any rate to a certain height. The masonry at Khorsabad was of three kinds. The rest of the defences at Khorsabad were of an inferior character. They were not united by any cement.
There is also another difficulty, viz. that if the building called the Harem at Khorsabad was built in this way, the apartments would have been open to the view of any one ascending the lofty building called the observatory.
Layard hastened to the trench, and there saw what he knew to be the head of a gigantic lion or bull, such as Botta had uncovered at Khorsabad. It was in admirable preservation. The expression was calm, yet majestic, and the outline of the features showed a freedom and knowledge of art that was scarcely to be looked for at so early a period. Says the explorer:
When Xenophon crossed Assyria 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.
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