Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/18

A History of Art in Chalrea and Assyria. History contradicts any such theory. The asserted inequality did not exist. The piety of Chaldaeans and Assyrians was no less lively and profound than that of the Egyptians. A Seti or a Rameses, the cherished son and visible image of Amen, the prince who became a god after his life was done, was no less powerful and venerable at Memphis and Thebes than were Sargon and Nebuchadnezzar at Nineveh and Babylon. The differences to which we have pointed are to be explained by other and more simple reasons. In Egypt the temple has survived the palace because it was a dwelling built for an im- mortal occupant, and therefore the most durable materials, stone and granite, were used ; while the palace, being no more than the resting-place of a day, a shelter raised among waving palms and flowing streams for the passenger through this life to the next, had to be content with brick and timber. In Mesopo- tamia, on the other hand, the same materials were used for the dwellings both of gods and kings ; and the same system of construction, a system dictated by the climate, was applied to both classes of buildings. It is not true that one group was neglected for the other, that Mesopotamian civilization took less trouble for Marduk, for Istar and Assur, than for its con- quering princes ; it is inaccurate to say that her palace architec- ture was all that Assyria had to show. The tomb was larger and more important in Egypt than in Mesopotamia, but in the latter country the temple was the object of as much care, both in construction and decoration, as the palace. Its arrange- ment w T as more interesting and far more original, and its outward decoration no less rich. In Babylon, at least, the inscriptions in which the kings recount their exploits for the admiration of posterity, speak oftener and with more pride of temples than of palaces. The remains of the latter are more complete simply because their chief development was over the surface of the ground, while that of the temples was toward the sky. With materials such as those of which both the one and the other were built it was inevitable that tall buildings should come to ruin before low ones. Moreover, their most interesting parts were on the exterior and more especially about their summits. Ramps and sanctuaries with their surface decora- tions must have begun to disappear as soon as daily care ceased to be lavished upon them. The solid interior alone would