Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/419

SUBORDINATE TYPES OF THE TEMPLE. 391 It is true that tablets have been found in the royal archives at Kouyundjik upon which reports as to the condition of the heavens are recorded for the guidance of the king, 1 but there is nothing in these so far as they have been deciphered to show that the observations were taken from the summit of a zigguratt. It is, however, very probable that the astronomers availed them- selves of such a height above the plain in order to escape from floating vapours and to gain a wider horizon. The platform of the Khorsabad tower must have had a superficial extent of about 1 80 square yards. There may have been a chapel or tabernacle in the centre, and yet plenty of space for the astrologers to do their work at their ease. We do not wish to deny, therefore, that this tower and other monuments of the same kind may have been used as observatories, but we believe that in Assyria, as in Chaldaea, their primary object was a religious one that they were raised so far above the dwellings of man, even of the king himself, in order to do honour to the gods whose sanctuaries were to crown their summits. 2 3. Subordinate Types of the Temple. SIDE by side with these pyramidal temples the Assyrians seem to have placed others of a less ambitious kind, dedicated, no doubt, to deities of the second rank. The great staged towers, whose height and mass implied an effort that could not be often repeated, were devoted to the worship of the great national gods. Botta believed that he had discovered a temple of this smaller kind in the building from which we borrowed the example of 1 LENORMANT, Histoire ancienne, vol. ii. p. 200 (3rd edition). 2 The position occupied by this staged tower in the plan of the royal palace at Khorsabad suggests that perhaps neither of the two explanations of its purpose here alluded to is the true one. It is placed immediately outside the Harem wall and as to the identity of the Harem there can be no doubt in such a way that any one ascending it must have had an uninterrupted view into the numerous courts of the women's apartments. Such a possibility seems inconsistent with the numerous precautions taken to secure the privacy of that part of the palace (see Vol. II. Chapter I. 2). Perhaps the real solution of the difficulty is to be found in a suggestion made, but only to be cast aside, by Mr. FERGUSSON, that this Khorsabad zigguratt was, in fact, a private oratory for the exclusive use of Sargon himself (History of Architecture, vol. i. p. 173). ED.