Project Gutenberg's Manual of Oriental Antiquities, by Ernest Babelon This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Manual of Oriental Antiquities Author: Ernest Babelon Release Date: December 5, 2015 [EBook #50626] [Last updated: December 21, 2015] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MANUAL OF ORIENTAL ANTIQUITIES *** Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Cover image not available] Table of Contents. List of Illustrations (In certain versions of this etext [in certain browsers] clicking on an image will bring up a larger version of that image.) Index: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Z Footnotes Some typographical errors have been corrected; a list follows the text. (etext transcriber's note) T MANUAL OF ORIENTAL ANTIQUITIES INCLUDING THE Architecture, Sculpture, and Industrial Arts Architecture, Sculpture, and Industrial Arts OF CHALDÆA, ASSYRIA, PERSIA, SYRIA, JUDÆA, PHŒNICIA, AND CARTHAGE. BY ERNEST BABELON, Librarian of the Department of Medals and Antiques in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. NEW EDITION, WITH A CHAPTER ON THE RECENT DISCOVERIES AT SUSA. With Two Hundred and Fifty-five Illustrations. NEW YORK: G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS LONDON: H. GREVEL AND CO., 1906. Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, England. PREFACE. HE domain which we are about to traverse in this little work embraces all the civilisations of the ancient East except that of Egypt. It includes the Chaldæans, the Assyrians, the Persians before Alexander, the Hittites of Syria, Cappadocia, and Asia Minor, the Jews, the Phœnicians, and even Cyprus, ending with the Carthaginians and their colonies. So vast a field, which, in the monumental work of MM. G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, occupies four volumes, can only be explored here in a summary manner, and the author claims no more than to have written a modest abridgment. It must not be supposed, however, in spite of the diversity and remoteness from one another of the peoples that we have just enumerated, that the subject lacks cohesion and unity. If the reader will have the goodness to follow us to the conclusion, he will be, on the contrary, struck by the perfect homogeneity of the book and the connection of all its parts. The picture, so to speak, contains many figures, but all concur in a common action, and the spectator grasps, at the first glance, the harmony of the composition. For, in these old Eastern civilisations which held sway over the world before Greece and Rome, only two streams of artistic influence are really to be traced—that which rises in Egypt and that which issues from Assyria. Often they took a parallel course, side by side, sharing like brothers the empire of the arts; sometimes they opposed or obstinately excluded one another; or else they joined forces, mingled closely with one another, and united their original capacities in a common fund. But if these varying conditions produced in certain countries a local and indigenous art which is neither purely Egyptian nor purely Assyrian, we can always decompose its elements and make a chemical analysis of it, so to speak; and, when we have restored to Egypt that which properly belongs to her, and to Assyria all that has been borrowed from her, we perceive that nothing remains at the bottom of the crucible. Thus it may be said that, properly speaking, there is no Persian art, or Hittite art, or Jewish art, or Phœnician or Carthaginian art; everywhere we find the forms of Egypt or those of Assyria grouped, mixed, perhaps altered, in proportions which vary according to time, environment, and political conditions. Leaving Egypt on one side, it is the Asiatic, or, more strictly, the Chaldæo-Assyrian stream that we have undertaken to study exclusively. We see it at its source, almost on the site of that Garden of Eden where Genesis and the Chaldæan legends place the ancestors of mankind; we follow it into Assyria, and observe its progress and transformations. Before long it overflows and passes on all sides beyond the limits of the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates; on one side, in Persia, it invades the palaces of Susa and Persepolis; on the other side, among the Hittites, the Aramæan populations of Syria, and the Jews, it spreads and divides into many rivulets, until it arrives at the frontier of Egypt and the heart of Asia Minor. Far from losing itself in the waves of the Mediterranean, it reaches all the shores of that great lake, Cyprus, Sicily, Africa, Spain; even passing beyond the Pillars of Hercules. It seemed to us, then, that it would be a work of interest to draw a picture of Chaldæo-Assyrian art not only in its native country where it develops at its ease, but in its many ramifications among the neighbouring nations where it comes into collision with its rival and is interpreted by foreigners, until the day when Greece snatches the torch of the arts from the failing hand of the East. This Asiatic art, as we shall see, has no cause to be ashamed by the side of the Egyptian art. Chaldæa possesses a genius as spontaneous as that of Egypt, and the valley of the Euphrates is not less fertile than that of the Nile. The ambitions of her architects and sculptors were as high and noble as those of the artists who flourished at the court of the Pharaohs, and the staged towers were the equals of the Pyramids. Both nations pursued an ideal which contains a part of the truth, for in making a building colossal and imposing by its size, they thought that they attained to supreme greatness and perfection. The Greeks, through their greater refinement, did not fall into these excesses. But who will ever be able to say how much the powerful originality of the Hellenic genius borrowed from the imperfect models furnished by Egypt and Assyria? Who will ever be able to define with clearness and precision the kind of influence which Chaldæo- Assyrian art, in particular, imported by the ships of Phœnicia into all maritime countries, had on the origin of art in that younger civilisation of which Athens was the centre? The ancient peoples of Asia, which form a compact group from the point of view of the history and development of the arts, are also akin in the complete destruction which has overtaken their architectural monuments. As if by a providential chastisement, from the table-land of Iran to the Pillars of Hercules, at Susa, at Babylon, at Nineveh, as at Jerusalem, Tyre, Carthage, and Gades, nothing is left of those temples, palaces, and towers which threw a challenge in the face of Heaven, and which wore out so many generations of slaves in the building of them. While the Pyramids still rise opposite to the Parthenon, and our astonishment is still excited by the imposing ruins of Egypt, Greece and Rome, nothing remains of the grand monuments which were the pride of the capitals of Asia. Everywhere we have to dig into the bowels of the earth and uncover the base of crumbled walls. Everything is reduced to dust like the image with the feet of clay, and a shroud of ashes covers that world the material culture of which is to be brought to life again, as far as possible, in the following pages. In the first English edition, M. Babelon’s work was somewhat enlarged, and occasionally revised by the translator—Mr. B.T.A. Evetts, then of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum. In the present edition will be found a new chapter by the author on the recent finds at Susa. A.S.G. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. CHALDÆAN ART. PAGE § 1. Architecture 3 § 2. Statues and Bas-reliefs 22 § 3. Minor Sculpture and the Industrial Arts 35 § 4. Engraved Seals 44 CHAPTER II. ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. § 1. The Principles of Building 52 § 2. Palaces 66 § 3. Temples and Staged Towers 72 § 4. Towns and their Fortifications 79 CHAPTER III. ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE AND PAINTING. § 1. Statues, Stelæ, Obelisks 85 § 2. Bas-reliefs 91 § 3. Painting and Enamelling 114 CHAPTER IV. THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS IN ASSYRIA. § 1. Ceramics 121 § 2. Metals 125 § 3. Wood and Ivory 134 § 4. Leather and Textiles 138 § 5. Ornaments and Seals 142 CHAPTER V. PERSIAN ART. § 1. Civil Architecture 147 § 2. Sculpture 159 § 3. Painting and Enamelling 167 § 4. Religious and Sepulchral Monuments 172 § 5. Engraved Stones and Ornaments 180 CHAPTER VI. THE HITTITES. § 1. Hittite Monuments in Syria 186 § 2. Hittite Monuments in Cappadocia 191 § 3. Hittite Monuments in Asia Minor 199 CHAPTER VII. JEWISH ART. § 1. The Temple of Jerusalem 205 § 2. The Decoration and Furniture of the Temple 223 § 3. Civil Architecture 230 § 4. Tombs 233 CHAPTER VIII. THE ART OF PHŒNICIA AND CYPRUS. § 1. Temples 239 § 2. Civil Architecture 246 § 3. Tombs 253 § 4. Phœnician Sculpture 262 § 5. Cypriote Sculpture 269 § 6. Phœnician and Cypriote Pottery 277 § 7. Phœnician Glass 283 § 8. Bronzes and Ornaments 288 § 9. Engraved Stones 294 CHAPTER IX. ARCHÆOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES AT SUSA. § 1. M. de Morgan’s Mission in Susiana 299 § 2. Chronology of the Ruins According to Recent Discoveries 303 § 3. The Principles of Building 313 § 4. Stone Sculpture 316 § 5. Bronze Metal-Work 326 § 6. Jewellery and the Industrial Arts 331 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FIGURE PAGE 1.Brick from Tello 5 2.Plan of the palace at Tello 9 3.Section of pillar 10 4.Corbelled vaulting at Mugheir 14 5.Socket for pivot of door from Tello 18 6.Terra-cotta cone from Tello 18 7.Drainage pipe at Mugheir 20 8.Foundation cylinder from Khorsabad 22 9.Bas-relief from Tello 23 10.Bas-relief from Tello 24 11.The Vulture Stela 25 12.The Vulture Stela 25 13.The Vulture Stela 26 14.Chaldæan head 27 15.Chaldæan head 27 16.Chaldæan statue 28 17.Chaldæan statue 29 18.Foot of Chaldæan vase 31 19.Bas-relief from Tello 32 20.Bas-relief from Tello 32 21.The “Caillou Michaux” 34 22.Stela of Marduk-nadin-akhi 34 23.Chaldæan statuette in bronze 35 24.Chaldæan statuette 36 25.Canephoros of Kudurmapuk 37 26.Chaldæan statuette in bronze 38 27.Chaldæan statuette in terra-cotta 40 28.Chaldæan statuette in alabaster 42 29.Bas-relief on the tablet of the god Samas 42 30.Chaldæan head in steatite 43 31.Chaldæan cylinder 45 32.Chaldæan cylinder 46 33.Chaldæan cylinder 46 34.Cylinder of Sargani 47 35.Chaldæan cylinder 48 36.Tomb at Warka 51 37.Masonry at Khorsabad 53 38.Section of wall at Khorsabad 53 39.Vaulted and domed houses 56 40.Vaulted drain 57 41.Vaulted drain at Khorsabad 58 42.Vaulted drain at Khorsabad. Slope of the bricks 59 43.Façade with pilasters 62 44.Base of column 62 45.Assyrian capital 63 46.Capital of Sassanian period from Warka 62 47.Shrine with columns 64 48.Base of small column 65 49.Plan of Dur-Sarrukin 67 50.Plan of the palace of Sargon 68 51.South-eastern façade of the palace of Sargon 69 52.Birds’-eye view of the palace of Sargon 71 53.The staged tower of Khorsabad 75 54.Temple of the god Haldia 77 55.Walls of Babylon 80 56.Chaldæan plan of a fortress 81 57.Assyrian plan of a fortress 82 58.Siege of a fortress 83 59.Plan of a gate at Khorsabad 84 60.Gate of Khorsabad 84 61.Statue of Assur-nasir-pal 86 62.Statue in the hareem at Khorsabad 87 63.Stela of Samsi-Rammanu 88 64.Stela of Assurbanipal 89 65.Obelisk of Shalmaneser 89 66.Assur-nasir-pal sacrificing a bull 91 67.Genius with the beak of an eagle 92 68.Two-winged genius 92 69.Four-winged genius, Khorsabad 93 70.Winged and human-headed lion 94 71.Front face of a winged bull 95 72.Battle scene 96 73.The Assyrian army in a mountainous country 97 74.Siege of a fortress 98 75.Navigation scene 99 76.Eunuchs 101 77.Assurbanipal and his queen 102 78.Jewish type from a bas-relief from the palace of Sennacherib 103 79.Assurbanipal in his chariot 102 80.Sargon 105 81.Wounded lioness 107 82.Slaves carrying a lion and birds. Bas-relief 108 83.Envoy bringing apes as tribute 109 84.Fragment of threshold, Kouyunjik 111 85.Slaves dragging a winged bull 112 86.Deer-hunt. Bas-relief 113 87.Painting on plaster, Nimroud 115 88.Portion of an enamelled archivolt at Khorsabad 116 89.Enamelled brick, Nimroud 117 90.Izdubar. Terra-cotta 122 91.Head of a monster. Terra-cotta 122 92.Tablet with figure of boar in relief 123 93.The Divine Mother. Terra-cotta 124 94.Istar. Terra-cotta 124 95.Gates of Balawat 126 96.Fragment of metal band of Balawat gates 127 97.Bronze dish, Nimroud 128 98.Assyrian archers 128 99.Various forms of the Assyrian helmet 128 100.Bronze lion 129 101.Bronze siren 129 102.Bronze siren 130 103.The demon of the south-west wind 130 104.Bronze plaque 131 105.Bronze plaque 132 106.Standard in a bas-relief from Khorsabad 133 107.Foot of a piece of furniture 133 108.Tent serving as the royal stable 136 109.Sennacherib’s throne. Bas-relief 136 110.Assyrian chariot 137 111.Ivory plaque 137 112.Assur-nasir-pal offering a libation 139 113.Richly caparisoned horse and rider 140 114.Assyrian deities carried in procession 142 115.Archaic Assyrian cylinder 144 116.Assyrian cylinder 145 117.Assyrian cylinder 145 118.Assyrian cylinder 145 119.Median cylinder 146 120.Platform of the palace of Cyrus 149 121.Basement at Persepolis 150 122.Gate and windows of the palace of Darius 151 123.Persepolitan capital 153 124.Plan of the Apadâna of Artaxerxes 154 125.Susian capital restored 155 126.Base of a column 156 127.Façade of the Apadâna of Artaxerxes 157 128.Cyrus. Bas-relief 160 129.Bas-relief at Persepolis 161 130.Bas-relief at Persepolis 162 131.Bas-relief from Persepolis 163 132.Bas-relief at Persepolis 164 133.Bas-relief at Persepolis 165 134.Portico at Persepolis 166 135.The lion frieze 168 136.Susian archer 169 137.Polychrome decoration of the palace of Artaxerxes 171 138.The tower of Jur. Restoration 173 139.The Gabr-i-Madar-i-Soleiman 176 140.Tomb of Cambyses I. 177 141.Façade of tomb at Nakhsh-i-Rustam 178 142.Cylinder of Darius 181 143.Persian cylinder 182 144.Persian seal 182 145.Seal of Artaxerxes 182 146.Persian seal. Conical 182 147.Persian seal 183 148.De Luynes’ bas-relief 184 149.The lion of Marash 186 150.Stela from Birejik 187 151.Fragments of sculpture from Carchemish 188 152.Bas-relief at Rum-Qalah 189 153.Stela at Marash 189 154.The sphinx of Euyuk 192 155.Rock sculptures at Iasili-Kaïa 193 156.Rock sculptures at Iasili-Kaïa 194 157.Rock sculptures at Iasili-Kaïa 194 158.Rock sculpture at Iasili-Kaïa 195 159.Rock sculpture of Iasili-Kaïa 195 160.Rock sculpture of Iasili-Kaïa 196 161.Tomb of Gherdek-Kaïasi 196 162.Sculpture at Iasili-Kaïa 198 163.Rock sculptures at Ghiaur Kalesi 199 164.Rock sculpture at Ibriz 200 165.Rock sculpture at Nymphio 201 166.Boss of Tarkudimme 203 167.Hittite cylinder 203 168.Site of the Temple on Mount Moriah 206 169.Plan of Herod’s restoration 211 170.The Jews’ Wailing-place 213 171.The western door. Present state 215 172.Interior view of the Double Gate 216 173.Plan of Herod’s Temple 218 174.Bird’s-eye view of Herod’s Temple 219 175.The Altar of Burnt-offerings 221 176.Egyptian naos and cherubim 225 177.Egyptian ark and naos 225 178.Egyptian table of offerings 226 179.Seven-branched candlestick 226 180.Capital of the bronze columns 227 181.The brazen sea 228 182.Movable basin 229 183.The tomb of Abraham at Hebron 233 184.Absalom’s tomb 234 185.Sepulchral chamber at Medaïn Salih 235 186.The monolith of Siloam 236 187.Tomb in the valley of Hinnom 237 188.Shrine at Ain el-Hayât 240 189.Coin of Paphos 241 190.Plan of the Giganteja 244 191.Roman wall at Byrsa 245 192.Terra-cotta house 248 193.Plan of the harbours at Carthage 250 194.Jetty of Thapsus 252 195.Tomb at Amrith. Plan 253 196.Tomb at Amrith. Section 253 197.Sepulchral chamber at Amrith 254 198.Mighzal at Amrith 254 199.The Burj el-Bezzâk 255 200.Chamber of the Burj el-Bezzâk 255 201.The Burj el-Bezzâk. Restoration 255 202.Section of a tomb at Saïda 256 203.Entrance of a tomb at Gebal 256 204.The sarcophagus of Eshmunazar 257 205.Sarcophagus in human form 258 206.Tomb at Amathus 260 207.Sepulchral chamber at Amathus 260 208.Plan of a tomb at Carthage 261 209.Phœnician slab at Amrith 263 210.Cypriote statue 265 211.Votive stela from Carthage 266 212.Stela from Lilybæum 267 213.Stela of Hadrumetum 268 214.Colossal head from Athieno 270 215.The colossus of Amathus 272 216.The priest with the dove 273 217.Bas-relief of Heracles and Eurytion 274 218.Sarcophagus from Amathus 275 219.Phœnician chariot in terra-cotta 277 220.Pygmy in terra-cotta 278 221.Pygmy in terra-cotta 278 222.Terra-cotta head from sarcophagus 279 223.Astarte. Phœnician terra-cotta 279 224.Terra-cotta from Cyprus 280 225.Cypriote terra-cotta 280 226.Cypriote terra-cotta 281 227.Cypriote terra-cotta 281 228.Mask from Carthage 282 229.Terra-cotta mask from Carthage 282 230.Transparent glass vase bearing name of Sargon 285 231.Phœnician glass 287 232.Glass vase from Jerusalem 288 233.Patera from Palestrina 289 234.Dish from Dali 290 235.Handle of a bronze crater 291 236.Phœnician gold ornament 292 237.Phœnician earrings 293 238.Cylinder in the De Clercq collection 294 239.Cylinder in the British Museum 295 240.Scarabæoid seal 297 241.Scarabæoid seal 297 242.Bone cylinder, showing the earliest stage of cuneiform writing 305 243.Fragment of an Elamite tablet inscribed with arithmetical calculations 306 244.Cylinder showing giants, lions, and bulls, glazed pottery 307 245.Brick Column. Susa 315 246.Triumphal stela of Naram-Sin 318 247.Fragment of bas-relief representing figure of Negrito type 323 248.Stela of Hammurabi, on which his code of laws is engraved 324 249.Kudurru (unfinished), Kassite period 325 250.Bronze bas-relief fragment 328 251.Bronze statuette. Temple of Shushinak 331 252.Gold and silver statuettes 332 253.Silver mask. Elamite period 333 254.Head-dress. Elamite period 334 255.Figure of a woman, ivory 335 ORIENTAL ANTIQUITIES. CHAPTER I. CHALDÆAN ART. The extensive region of Western Asia to which the Greeks gave the name of Mesopotamia was already, at the period which lies farthest back among the memories of mankind, the centre of a mighty civilisation rivalling that of Egypt, and disputing with the latter the glory of having formed the cradle of the arts in the ancient East. Babylon and Nineveh were by turns, according to the course of political events, the intellectual hearth at which the bold and original genius was kindled, which marks the artistic productions of Chaldæa and Assyria, and the reflection of which is shown in the monuments of Persia, Judæa, Phœnicia, and Carthage, the island of Cyprus, and the Hittite races. Yet it is neither in the capital of Chaldæa nor in that of Assyria that the oldest traces have hitherto been found of this great civilisation, extinct now for twenty-four centuries; it is not among the ruins of these famous cities that we can hear, as {1} [Image not available] Fig. 1.—Brick from Tello (Louvre). it were, an echo of the first wailings of the genius of plastic art, observe its groping efforts, touch with our finger its rudest attempts. In the country, formerly so fertile, called Lower Chaldæa, where, according to the popular tradition preserved by Berosus, the fish-god Oannes taught men in the beginning “all that serves to soften life,” the traveller comes, almost at every step, upon artificial mounds known as tells, concealing under a veil of dust the remains of cities which yield in point of antiquity neither to Babylon nor Nineveh; and it is there that modern archæologists have had the good fortune to disinter ruins far more ancient than those of the palaces of Sargon, Assurbânipal, or Nebuchadnezzar. Though a number of tumuli remain unexplored, and, as we may conjecture, future excavations will afford much new matter for science, nevertheless a brilliant light has already been thrown by numerous and important discoveries on the oriental origin of art and on the degree of material culture reached by the nation which founded Babel and the other Chaldæan towns of Genesis. The ruins of Abu Habbah, identified with the two Sipparas (Sepharvaim, that of the god Samas and that of the goddess Anunit), have yielded to our curiosity several monuments of the highest interest; those of Abu Shahrein (Eridu), Senkereh (Larsa), Mugheir (Ur, the native city of Abraham), the great necropolis of Warka (Uruk, the Erech of the Bible), are sites which have all furnished already an important harvest of remains belonging to the most distant ages, incomplete as their exploration has been. But the extensive and methodical excavations undertaken from 1877 to 1881 by M. E. de Sarzec at Tello (Tell Loh) have enriched the Louvre with a collection of monuments unique in the museums of Europe, and enable us to give, at the present time, an exact and precise account of the character of Chaldæan architecture and sculpture long before Nineveh and Babylon had succeeded in imposing their supremacy upon these regions. Tello, fifteen hours north of Mugheir, twelve hours east of Warka, seems to represent the ancient Sirpurla.[1] Its ruins, which cover a space of four miles and a quarter, consist of a series of mounds at a short distance from the course of an ancient canal dug by the hand of man, the Shatt el Hai, which starts from the Euphrates and flows into the Tigris twelve hours below Bagdad. The principal tell contained the substructures of a palace which was, two or three thousand years before our era, the dwelling of a prince named, according to Assyriologists, Gudea. Hither we must especially transport ourselves, as well as to the mounds of Mugheir, Warka, and Abu Shahrein, where the English explorers Loftus and Taylor made some excavations with good results. The narrative of these excavations and the monuments which they have yielded to our museums, will help us to determine the peculiar features of an essentially self-made art, born spontaneously on the soil where it flourished, and apparently in no degree borrowed from its neighbours. I. Architecture. One of the fundamental characters of Chaldæo-Assyrian architecture is the exclusive use of bricks as the constructive material. This is required by the very nature of the soil of Mesopotamia, in which building-stone and wood suitable for carpenters’ work are entirely wanting, while the clay is thick, adhesive, and peculiarly adapted for fashioning in the mould and baking in the kiln. Accordingly, while the modern inhabitants of the country continue to make bricks, their manufacture is already recorded in the biblical reminiscences of the Tower of Babel: “Go to,” say the men who would build a tower that should reach to Heaven, “let us make brick and burn them thoroughly: and they had brick for stone and slime had they for mortar.”[2] The prophet Nahum informs us of the method of brick-making: “Draw thee waters,” he says,” ... go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln.”[3] There were two kinds of bricks. The unbaked brick is a square of whitish clay, mixed with fine straw and simply dried in the sun when it comes out of the mould; it was generally from 8 in. to 1 ft. square by 4 in. thick. The month in which the heat of summer first becomes intolerable in these regions, namely the month of Sivan (May-June) was called “the brick month,” or that in which the clay cakes were submitted to the action of the sun. To judge by what is done in Egypt at the present day, one workman could by himself make from one thousand to fifteen hundred bricks a day. The baked brick was subjected to the action of fire in proper kilns, like those of our modern brickyards; it acquired, through the baking, a reddish colour, and was less sensible than the crude brick to the decomposing action of damp; it was also more limited in its dimensions, in order that the heat might penetrate the internal substance of the mass, without danger of calcination on the surface. On one side of every brick, baked or unbaked, the name and official titles of the reigning prince were stamped by means of a matrix or a die used as a seal; thus, at Tello most of the bricks were marked with the name of Gudea, and at Babylon bricks of Nebuchadnezzar are found by hundreds of thousands. While describing the construction of the fortifications at Babylon, Herodotus shows the process followed by the Chaldæans in building a wall: “As they dug the moat, they made bricks of the earth taken out of the trench, and when they had made a certain number of bricks they baked them in kilns. Then, using boiling bitumen as mortar, and inserting mats of woven reeds at every thirtieth course of bricks, they built first the borders of the moat, and next the wall itself in the same way.”[4] Mesopotamia possesses abundant wells of bitumen, notably at Hit and at Kalah Shergat; as for the tall reeds which still grow in abundance in the marshes of Lower Chaldæa, their employment in building had the effect of giving more solidity and cohesion to the courses of bricks. For walls less carefully constructed, or for partition-walls in the interior of the houses, a simple mortar of clay was used instead of bitumen. In great structures, such as Birs Nimroud at Babylon, the bricks are bound together by mortar made of lime, solid enough to stand all tests. The ruins of Mugheir have revealed the use of a mixture of ashes and lime, which is still employed by the natives, and called by them sharûr. The necessarily limited size of bricks baked in kilns or dried in the sun must have helped to bring about a speedier disintegration of the structures, and have been a serious obstacle to the erection of walls of a height to be compared, for instance, with that of the Egyptian temples. At certain seasons of the year in Mesopotamia the rain falls in torrents, and, filtering through walls in bad repair, would soon open cracks and bring about the ruin of the structure. In these lowlands furrowed with watercourses, the crude brick of the foundations often on this account ran the risk of returning to its condition of clayey mud without consistency. Greek tradition relates that the Medes and Chaldæans saw a part {2} {3} {4} {5} {6} of the walls of Nineveh fall of themselves, when they prolonged a blockade which forced the besieged to admit the waters of the Tigris during many weeks into the moats beneath the ramparts. The cuneiform inscriptions themselves, while the empire founded by Nebuchadnezzar was flourishing, often point out temples and palaces falling to ruin, which the kings strive without ceasing to repair or rebuild. The old sanctuaries of primitive Chaldæa, E-saggil, E-zida, the Temple of the Great Light, E-parra, E-anna, E-ulbar, and others consecrated to Sin, to Samas, to Nana, to Bel Marduk, to Nebo, are restored at great expense by Nabonidus, the last King of Babylon, who sets himself the task of recalling in his inscriptions the material difficulties of this work worthy of a pious antiquarian. Let no one be surprised after this at the striking contrast between the ruins of Mesopotamia, and those of Egypt as we now see them. In the valley of the Nile building-stone abounds, and the architect has only to make his choice among the various qualities of material. Accordingly he hews out gigantic monoliths, erects imposingly majestic pylons, rears to an aerial height forests of pillars which seem to uphold the sky, plants in the middle of the desert those massive Pyramids which will defy to the end of time even the most determined of Vandals. On the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, on the contrary, there is now nothing but the uniform plain of the desert, broken here and there by mounds of débris covered with sand; here it may be said with truth that the very ruins have perished. Only in thought can the archæologist reconstruct vast buildings in accordance with the vast material buried in disorder in the mud. The use of bricks in building has been, to a greater extent than political events, the auxiliary of Jehovah’s wrath against Nineveh and Babylon. If the nature of the soil forced the Mesopotamian architect to build with bricks, the neighbourhood of rivers and canals for irrigation and the want of outlet for the water obliged him at the same time to have recourse to an expedient peculiar to Chaldæo- Assyrian architecture. He had to raise the actual dwelling on an artificial terrace removed from the level of a soil impregnated with unwholesome damp. This platform or basement of unbaked brick on which the building was placed is met with everywhere, not only at Nineveh and Babylon, but from the beginning in the substructures of Mugheir, Tello, Warka, and Abu Shahrein. In the palace of the patesi Gudea, the mass forms a sort of immense pedestal 39 ft. high, and nearly 655 ft. at the base; at the present day the sides form in relation to the plain a slope of 164 ft. Formerly the platform was mounted by a gentle slope intended for horses and chariots, and by one or more flights of steps which broke the outline of the terrace. The stone staircases by which the terrace of the palaces of Persepolis is ascended, are still in place; in Chaldæa and Assyria, where they were built of brick, they have almost everywhere disappeared. However, Taylor discovered two on the side of the platform of the palace of Abu Shahrein; one has only twelve steps 2 ft. broad; but the other was a monumental staircase of stone, 16 ft. broad, with a slope of more than 65 ft. The edifice which surmounts the platform at Tello is of bricks cemented together with bitumen; its exterior walls are 5 ft. 10 in. thick, and form a parallelogram 173 ft. long and 101 ft. broad. Like the palaces of Warka and Mugheir, its orientation is according to the Assyrian custom—that is to say, the angles are turned towards the cardinal points, not the sides as in the Egyptian monuments. The two longer sides bulge slightly towards the middle, thus describing two opposite elliptical curves—a peculiarity which gives to the plan of the edifice something of the appearance of [Image not available] Fig. 2.—Plan of the palace at Tello (after Heuzey). a barrel, or of two trapeziums joined at the base. The outer surface of the walls is not everywhere uniform and flat; the adjacent sides of the northern angle are ornamented by projections alternately curved and rectilineal—a system of decoration which has also been observed at Warka, among the ruins of the temple called Wuswas, and is found later in the Assyrian monuments. The great north- eastern façade exhibits in the middle, besides the outward swell of which we have spoken, a projection 3 ft. 3 in. thick and 18 ft. long. The wings of this projection are formed of square pilasters and half-columns 1 ft. 7 in. in diameter, which recall the clustered pillars of our cathedrals, and form one of the most interesting peculiarities of the primitive architecture of Chaldæa. Taylor[5] and Loftus[6] had already remarked, at Abu Shahrein and Warka respectively, pillars and half-columns of brick-work; M. de Sarzec has found the same architectural features in one of the secondary mounds of Tello, which he calls the tell of pillars,[7] and which seems to represent the ruins of the temple of the god Nin Girsu. Two of these pillars, which measured 6 ft. in thickness, and were separated by a space of 6½ ft., still consisted of twenty-four courses of bricks. “Each pillar,” says M. de Sarzec, “is formed of a cluster of four round columns close together, and built entirely of brickwork.... If one of the four round columns is taken to pieces it is found that every alternate course is formed of a circular brick in the centre, round which radiate eight triangular bricks grooved at their interior angle, and rounded on the outer {7} {8} {9} {10} [Image not available] Fig. 3.—Section of pillar (after Heuzey). [Image not available] surface, so that they describe by their union a complete circle. In the next course the circle is composed, on the contrary, of eight triangular bricks ending in a point, which are united at the centre of the column, and of six other curved bricks which enclose the first eight. The space between the four circles thus formed is filled up with two large bricks hollowed out in the form of an arc of a circle, which fit exactly into it. These curious pillars, thus ingeniously constructed, recall the Egyptian order, modelled upon vegetable forms, which imitates four lotus-stalks in a bouquet; they show how skilfully the Chaldæans could dispense with the stone column. The base consisted of a square mass of bricks forming a pedestal projecting on all sides 2 ft. 11 in. beyond the shaft. The whole group was covered with a thick bed of plaster.”[8] Yet, whatever skill was displayed in the manufacture of these specially moulded bricks, round, triangular, or forming a section of a circle, pillars of this construction could not, like the Egyptian column, show sufficient solidity to support a heavy mass; they would soon have bent under the burden. Accordingly they could only be employed exceptionally and almost entirely for decoration, whether to support the roof of a grand staircase or to shelter the cella in which a deity delivered his oracles. The defective side of Chaldæan architecture, therefore, consists in the lack of stone supports rising proudly into space like the Egyptian column, and upholding on their bold heads, quite as well as the thickest walls, the foot of the arch, the architraves, the roof, the upper terraces or the upper stories of the building. But the proof that the architects would have hewn columns of stone, if nature had furnished them with the necessary material, is just this ingenious artifice by which they succeeded in replacing them; and moreover they did not hesitate to employ small columns of wood or metal in the construction of small buildings, such as the shrines of their gods. A stela of King Nabu-ablu-iddin (about B.C. 900), found at Abu Habbah, represents the shrine of the god Samas, supported by small wooden pillars, covered with plates of bronze overlapping each other so as to resemble the trunk of a palm tree (see fig. 29). The base and the capital are alike; they are composed of a double volute shaped like a lotus-flower, approaching somewhat the Ionic capital; in short, the Chaldæans knew how to make use of the column in minor architecture. One doorway at least was opened in each façade of the palace of Tello, but these openings were not on the axis of the structure, nor even symmetrical. The principal side (the north-east) had two entrances; the largest, nearly in the middle of the swell, had an opening 3 ft. 11 in. broad. It was constructed at a later period—that is to say, at the time near the Christian era when the Græco- Parthian kings of Characene conceived the idea of restoring Tello and installing themselves there. Like the Arab houses of our day, the outer walls of the palace of Gudea show no other openings; there are neither windows nor lights of any sort, admitting the air and the day, and looking out over the country or the town. Let us now penetrate into the interior of the Chaldæan edifice, of which the blind and dumb walls leave in our imagination an impression of gloom and cold uniformity. The walls seem never to have exhibited the smallest architectural decoration; they are entirely bare, and only characterised from time to time by depressions and projections; no traces of mouldings, of plinths, of cornices, and of those devices to which the architects of all countries have recourse in order to break the lines of the walls, and to call forth effects of light and shade. It must be supposed that the interior decoration of the palace consisted entirely of colouring and hanging draperies. The thickness of the wall varies from 8 ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. 7 in. All the partitions cut one another at right angles, forming thirty-six square or rectangular chambers; the largest measures 39 ft. 4 in. by 12 ft. 2 in., and the smallest 10 ft. 11 in. by 9 ft. 9 in. The disproportion which exists, especially in the state saloon, between the length and breadth, the extreme thickness of the walls, even of those which are the least important in the structure, form essential peculiarities to which we shall draw attention later in the Assyrian edifices. At Nineveh it has been proved that it is the thrust of the semicircular vaulting, which roofs the chambers, that has forced the architect to bring the parallel walls near to one another and to give them an enormous thickness. Are we, in the absence of palpable proof, to draw the same conclusion with regard to the palaces of old Chaldæa? Are we authorised to assert that the vault was known three thousand years before our era? In a word, how were the halls of Gudea’s building covered? Was it everywhere by means of transverse rafters supporting a floor and a terrace? or was it oftener by a bricked vault? As far as we have read M. de Sarzec’s narrative, or M. Heuzey’s studies on the excavations of Tello, we have found no direct answer to this question. Perhaps the present state of the ruins or the successive alterations to which the primitive structure has been subjected do not allow a categorical solution of the problem to be given. However, important indications authorise us to believe that the Chaldæans of the time of Gudea already understood the vault and used it for roofing their houses. In several parts even of the palace of Tello, M. de Sarzec found small vaulted passages, 3 ft. 3 in. high and 1 ft. 11 in.[9] thick, in a perfect state of preservation; in one of the secondary mounds he brought to light a small vaulted drain which carried the sewage of the town far away into the plain. Taylor found, in an underground chamber of the necropolis at Mugheir, the most primitive kind of vault that has ever been known—that called the corbelled vault. In this false vault the courses of bricks ascend in parallel rows on each side until they meet one another, every fresh course projecting perceptibly beyond that beneath it, until the opposite courses touch and form one. It was, then, as it seems, the Chaldæans who invented the vault;[10] the want of timber compelled them in early times to contrive to defend themselves at once against the heavy rains and the ardour of a torrid sun; the creation of the vault was in their case instinctive and spontaneous. They raised, two or three thousand years before our era, vaults and domes like those which are built to this day by the rudest masons at Mosoul or Bagdad. No doubt the present state of the Chaldæan ruins and the insufficient explorations which have been undertaken among them do not enable us to say whether these Proto-Chaldæans knew every kind of vault, as the Assyrians did in the age of the Sargonids, or the Babylonians at the epoch of Nebuchadnezzar; but the remarkable perfection observed in their monumental structures, and in the very manufacture of the bricks, are so many arguments in favour of the inference that the palaces and houses of the Chaldæans in the time of Gudea were surmounted, for the most part, by semicircular vaults or by cupolas, as were later, according to Strabo,[11] the houses of the Babylonians. The vaults supported a {11} {12} {13} {14} {15} Fig. 4.—Corbelled vaulting at Mugheir (after Taylor). [Image not available] Fig. 5.—Socket for pivot of door, from Tello (Louvre). [Image not available] Fig. 6.—Terra-cotta cone from Tello (Louvre). terrace formed of clay; this layer of earth would be less thick over rooms roofed only with a ceiling of palm-beams and reed-matting. The ascent was by staircases, an example of which seems to have been found in the palace at Tello.[12] While clearing away the material accumulated between the courts A and B, the workmen employed by the French explorer came into contact (at the point H) with a structure of baked brickwork, which proves that the Chaldæans at the remotest epoch had already invented one of the most interesting and characteristic elements of their architecture—the zikkurat or staged tower. The lower layers in the palace of Gudea alone exist, and are composed of two solid masses in stages one above the other. In its present condition the upper terrace is a mass 26 ft. square, 13 ft. less on all sides than the lower stage; perhaps there still exists a third and lower step, which has not been reached by the soundings, which are imperfect at this point. The zikkurat of Tello was not in any case so lofty or so important a structure as those of the Ninevite palaces or those represented by the ruins of Babil or Birs Nimroud at Babylon. It was even much less considerable than that which Taylor observed at Abu Shahrein, and which was equally old. These towers always had, from the first, seven stages, each painted of a different colour, and connected with the worship of the sun (Samas), the moon (Sin), and the five planets of the astronomical system of the Chaldæans. The disposition of the royal apartments showed a striking analogy with that which we shall meet with again later in the palaces of Nineveh; there were the convenience and comfort which we find in the palaces of modern oriental sovereigns. To the Chaldæans again we must give the credit of having invented that architectural arrangement which springs from the necessities of oriental life, and is so well fitted to its needs that for four thousand years it has never varied. There were in the palace of Gudea three interior courts (A, B, C, fig. 2), round each of which the rooms radiated, and from which they received air and light. Each of these three groups had its own entrance, and communicated with the next group only by a single passage easy to guard or to close. The group of chambers situated in the northern angle (C) was especially isolated and removed from the others; it was the hareem or women’s apartments. At the eastern angle (B) were the rooms composing the seraglio or selamlik—that is to say, the part of the palace inhabited by the king and his officers; there was the saloon for official receptions, of which we have given the dimensions. This part of the royal dwelling communicated on one side with a state courtyard, measuring 55 ft. 8 in. by 68 ft. 9 in., and on the other with the outside by means of a smaller room serving as an antechamber; beside the door opening on the façade, boxes or recesses had been arranged in which the guards were posted. The third group of chambers, on the south-east (A), formed the Khan—that is to say, the dependencies of the palace, the kitchens, the slaves’ lodgings, and the stables. All the rooms were paved with bricks; they very rarely led into one another, and had an opening looking on to the court. The largest of the doorways, that which opened into the state saloon, was of the unusual breadth of 6 ft. 6 in.; it was probably a folding door. Under each of the principal doors there was a great threshold of marble or alabaster, sometimes covered with an inscription and placed on a bed of bitumen and crushed bricks; under this concrete, finally, cylinders of precious stone and talismanic amulets were generally found. The leaves of the door turned on pivots, the point of which rested in a cavity hollowed out for this purpose in a great block of diorite. M. de Sarzec brought to the Louvre a large number of these natural blocks, which were found buried in the pavement so as only to rise an inch or two above the surface. On the smooth surface of each of them it is seen that the socket, hollowed out in the form of a conical cup, has undergone an incessant friction; round the hole an inscription, sometimes circular, was engraved (fig. 5). To prevent the wooden pivot of the doors from wearing out too rapidly, it was enveloped in a metal sheath, which took the form of a funnel, and which was fixed to the wood by means of nails. One of these bronze cups has been found at Tello, still in place on the socket.[13] The discoveries of Loftus and Taylor show us how the façades and the rooms of the Chaldæan palaces were decorated. The principal façade of the buildings at Abu Shahrein and Warka had a mural decoration of a kind as primitive as it was singular.[14] First it was plastered with a thick layer of clay stucco; then, before this plaster was completely dry, cones of baked clay were buried in it, like metal nails. Only the head of these cones is visible on the surface of the wall. While the stem is plunged into the thick clay and sticks there unseen. To the heads of these cones, disposed at regular distances, and acting perhaps also as talismans, various colours are applied; they are black, red, white, or yellow. Moreover, each head is separated from its neighbours by coloured geometrical lines, so that it became to the eye the centre of a lozenge or a square. If the interior of the rooms was lined in monochrome with white stucco, or with fresco painting, nothing of this decoration is left. But we have in sufficiently large quantities, although always much mutilated, the remains of another more original system of wall decoration, of which the Chaldæans are the inventors—that is to say, enamelled bricks. By applying a coloured paste, which the fire would vitrify, to one of the surfaces of the bricks before baking, a glaze or enamel was produced, closely united to the clay and immovably solid. It was again necessity and their ungrateful climate which induced the Chaldæans to have recourse to this ingenious method. They were in great need of a remedy for the want of stone and a means of preventing the heavy rains from spoiling the colours applied to the walls. They succeeded so perfectly in this that even at the present day the brilliancy of these glazed tiles is not affected. The colours with which they are painted are of the simplest, and vary little; they are blue, white, black, yellow and red. Unfortunately, those fine fragments which have been brought to our museums are only so far interesting that they teach us the technical methods of a manufacture which involves that of opaque glass; even those which are least mutilated contain at the most a few floral designs or portions of the figures of animals, and moreover these last are not older than the epoch of Nebuchadnezzar. The trenches dug among the massive terraces of Chaldæa have revealed other curious details of construction. We know, for {16} {17} {18} {19} {20} Fig. 7.—Drainage pipe at Mugheir (after Loftus). [Image not available] Fig. 8.—Foundation-cylinder from Khorsabad (Louvre). [Image not available] Fig. 9.—Bas-relief from Tello (Louvre). instance, what steps were taken to prevent the sewage of the houses or the rain-water which fell upon them from filtering through the platforms of crude brick on which the buildings stood; a rapid disintegration would have followed. They, therefore, planned a complete system of water-channels and drainage. In one of the mounds at Tello, M. de Sarzec found a series of cylindrical pipes or tubes of baked clay, fitted into one another, and forming together a conduit for the water.[15] But the place where this method has been carried out with peculiarly ingenious skill is the necropolis at Mugheir. The top of the platform, in the body of which the tombs are sunk, is covered with a brick pavement laid with special care, in which every chink is filled up with bitumen. Under this upper crust the coffins are ranged in order, one above the other, each one being placed separately in a small chamber. At intervals brick tubes are met with, fitted into one another and forming a sort of immense flue hidden in the structure. The lower extremity of the pipes opened into a drain; the upper end, on a level with the surface of the pavement of the terrace, was furnished with a cap pierced with an infinite number of small holes like a skimmer. Through these the rain-water was carried off, and this system of drainage was so wonderfully well understood and carried out, that it has remained intact to our own day, and, according to Loftus, the tombs have been so well preserved that they are found perfectly dry, including the bodies and their furniture. We shall see the Assyrians take similar precautions to preserve the terraces of the Ninevite palaces from the percolation of water. The construction of a temple or palace was the occasion of a religious ceremony analogous to that which we call the laying of the first stone. In a hollow formed in the foundation-wall a cylinder of baked clay was deposited (fig. 8), on which an inscription was written describing the erection of the building and setting forth the piety and great deeds of the prince; this cylinder was accompanied by various talismanic objects: cones and statuettes of bronze and baked clay, cylindrical seals, votive tablets, sometimes of silver or gold. Among the foundations of the palace of Gudea, M. de Sarzec found four of these cavities in the wall measuring 1 ft. 1 in. by 10 in. by 4 in.; they still contained the cylinders and amulets deposited there. Hiding-places of the same kind have been observed at Senkereh, at Mugheir, and among the ruins of almost all the Chaldæan and Assyrian buildings. The Assyrians themselves, when they wished to restore an old ruined temple, took pains first to find out the hiding-place of the foundation-cylinder or timmennu. The last king of Babylon, Nabonidus, relates in one of the...