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From fragments found at Khorsabad, M. Place had already divined that the Assyrians covered the planks of their doors with bronze plates, but all doubts on the point have been removed by a recent discovery, which has proved once for all that art profited in the end by what at first was nothing more than a protection against weather and other causes of deterioration. In 1878 Mr.
It is to be regretted, however, that this portion of the great Khorsabad ruin still remains so incompletely examined. Consisting of the private apartments, it is naturally less rich in sculptures than other parts; and hence it has been comparatively neglected. It is earnestly to be hoped that future excavators will direct their efforts to this easily attainable and interesting object.
A further reason for these terraces may be found in the fact that in a hot climate buildings erected some 20 or 30 ft. above the level of the plain catch the breezes much more quickly than lower edifices. In the case of Khorsabad the terrace was made of sun-dried bricks, about 15·7 in. square and 2 in. thick. These bricks were made of the most carefully prepared clay.
The colors actually found upon the bas-reliefs are four only red, blue, black, and white. The red is a good bright tint, far exceeding in brilliancy that of Egypt. On the sculptures of Khorsabad it approaches to vermilion, while on those of Nimrud it inclines to a crimson or a lake tint.
There must in all probability have been other remains of these columns besides those noticed by the English explorer, but at Khorsabad alone were the excavations superintended by a professional architect, there alone were they watched by the trained eye of a man capable of giving its true meaning and value to every detail of a ruinous building.
Both at Warka and in the Khorsabad harem, these vertical ribs are accompanied by another ornament which may, perhaps, have been in even more frequent use. We mean those long perpendicular grooves, rectangular in section, with which Assyrian and Chaldæan walls were seamed.
There is a difference between such fragments as this and the glazed tiles of the Khorsabad gates. In the latter the enamelled edges of several bricks were required to make a single figure. In the bricks from Nimroud on the other hand, whole figures are painted on their surface, and in fact a single brick had several figures upon it which were, therefore, on a much smaller scale.
The true heart of Assyria was the country close along the Tigris, from lat. 35° to 36° 30'. Within these limits were the four great cities, marked by the mounds at Khorsabad, Mosul, Nimrud, and Kileh-Sherghat, besides a multitude of places of inferior consequence.
Arches still standing in the city gates, fragments of vaults found within the chambers of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad, the evidence of the bas-reliefs and the existing methods of building in Mesopotamia all concur in persuading us that the vault played an important part in the constructions of Assyria, and consequently in those of Chaldæa; but we should not go so far as to say that all the rooms in the palace at Khorsabad and elsewhere were covered with barrel vaults, domes, or semi-domes.
The retaining wall of the platform is not straight, but has in it 40 breaks or set-offs of unequal dimensions. At the top of the staircase are the remains of a building with four columns in the centre and with large portals both back and front, each of which is adorned with gigantic bulls, strikingly resembling those found at Khorsabad.
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