Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/162

142 A HISTORY OF ART IN CIIALD.KA AND ASSYRIA. that was felt as far as the ./Egaean, and had something to do with one of the fairest creations of Greek art. We thus catch side glimpses of the column, as it w r ere, in small buildings, in the porches before the principal doors of palaces, and in the open galleries with which some of the latter buildings were crowned (Fig. 39). In all these cases it is nothing but a more or less elegant accessory ; we might if we pleased give a sufficiently full description of Mesopotamian architecture without hinting at its existence. FlG. 41. Temple on the bank of a river, Khorsabad ; from Botta. We cannoc say the same of the arch, which played a much more important role than it did in Egypt. There it was banished, as we have seen, to the secondary parts of an edifice. It hardly entered into the composition of the nobler class of buildings ; it was used mainly in store-rooms built near the temples, in the gateways through the outer walls of tombs, and in underground cellars and passages. 1 In Mesopotamia, on the other hand, the arch is one of the real constituent elements of the national architecture. 1 See the History of Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 77-84.