Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/190

1 68 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALD^EA AND ASSYRIA. launched into mid-air without any centering, and bearing the workmen who were building it on its unfinished flanks, was a phenomenon calculated to astonish an architect. Taking every- thing into consideration the clay vaults of Khorsabad are no more surprising than these domes of modern Mossoul. 1 We cannot say for certain that the Assyrian builders made use of domes in addition to the barrel vaults, but all the probabilities are in favour of such an hypothesis. A dome is a peculiar kind of vault used for the covering of square, circular, or polygonal spaces. As for circular and poly- gonal rooms, none have been found in Assyria, but a few square ones have been disinterred. On the principal facade of Sargon's palace there are two of a fair size, some forty-eight feet each way. Thomas did not believe that a barrel vault was used in these apartments; the span would have been too great. He sought therefore for some method that would be at once well adapted to the special conditions and in harmony with the general system. This he found in the hemispherical dome. All doubts on the subject were taken away, however, by the discovery of the bas-relief (Fig. 43) reproduced on page 145, in which we find a group of buildings roofed, some with spherical vaults, some with elliptical domes approaching a cone in outline. This proves that the Mesopotamian architects were acquainted with different kinds of domes, just as they were with varieties of the barrel vault. It has been guessed that this bas-relief, which is unique in its way, merely represents the brick-kilns used in the construction of the palace of Sennacherib. To this objection there is more than one answer. The Assyrian sculptures we possess represent but a small part of the whole, and each fresh discovery introduces us to forms previously unknown. Moreover, had the sculptor wished to represent the kilns in which the bricks for the palace were burnt, he would have shown the flames coming out at the top. In reliefs of burning towns he never leaves out the flames, 1 M. A. CHOISY, well known by his Essays on L? Art de batir chez les Romains, shows that the same method was constantly used by the Byzantine architects. See his Note sur la Construction des Voutes sans cintrage pendant la Periode byzantine (Annales des Fonts et Chaus'ees, 1876, second period, vol. xii.). See also Mr. FERGUSSON'S account of the erection of a huge stone dome without centering of any kind, by an illiterate Maltese builder, at Mousta, near Valetta (Handbook of Architecture, Second Edition, vol. iv. p. 34). ED.