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Updated: May 14, 2025
In the palace of Asshur-izir-pal at Nimrud, the earliest of the discovered edifices, the great hall was 160 feet long by nearly 40 broad. In Sargon's palace at Khorsabad the size of no single room was so great; but the number of halls was remarkable, there being no fewer than five of nearly equal dimensions. The largest was 116 feet long, and 33 wide; the smallest 87 feet long, and 25 wide.
Mari was a city on the middle Euphrates, but the name may here signify the district of Mari which lay in the upper course of Sargon's march. Now we know that the later Sumerian monarch Gudea obtained his cedar beams from the Amanus range, which he names Amanum and describes as the "cedar mountains". Doubtless he felled his trees on the eastern slopes of the mountain.
Sargon's son, Sennacherib, was a proud and ambitious monarch, who used his Israelite captives in building up the walls of Nineveh, and making the most magnificent of all the palaces there, eight acres in size, and covered with inscriptions.
Westwards and southwards, however, Sargon's arm swept a wider circuit.
This had helped us to fill in the gap between the famous Sargon of Akkad and the later dynasties, but it did not carry us far beyond Sargon's own time. Our archaeological evidence also comes suddenly to an end. Thus the earliest picture we have hitherto obtained of the Sumerians has been that of a race employing an advanced system of writing and possessed of a knowledge of metal.
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.
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.
Bel is introduced in the inscription in question immediately after Ashur, and one is therefore inclined to suspect that Sargon's archaeological knowledge fails him at this point in speaking of the old Bel, whereas he really meant to invoke the protection of Bel-Marduk as the chief god of his most important possession next to Assyria.
The portion of the composition inscribed upon this tablet does not contain the lines referring to Sargon's conquest of Elam, for these occurred in an earlier section of the composition; but the recovery of the tablet puts beyond a doubt the historical character of the traditions preserved upon the omen-tablet as a whole, and the conquest of Elam is thus confirmed by inference.
While going out, he thought that the Assyrians, though barbarians, were not evil minded, since they knew how to respond to magnanimity. Sargon was so touched that he gave order immediately to bring wine, and he drank from midday till evening. Some time after sunset the priest, Istubar, left Sargon's chamber for a while; he returned soon, but through a concealed doorway.
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