Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/42

24 A History of Art in Ciialdxa and Assyria. Its decorations were rich in the extreme. On at least one side the foot of the wall was decorated with a sort of mosaic of enamelled brick surmounted by groups of semi-columns (Fig. 101 and Plate XV.). The doors were flanked by statues and by tall timber shafts cased in metal, carrying on their summits tufts of palm leaves in gilded bronze, giving a free rendering of the tall stem and graceful head of the date-tree. We have restored one part of this court in perspective (Fig. 7) introducing nothing conjectural but the upper parts of the wall. 1 In this woodcut an arrangement may be noticed (it is still more clearly shown in the plan) which is encountered nowhere else. The area of the brick- paved court was intersected by two lines of stone slabs crossing each other in the centre and standing slightly above the general level of the pavement. These paths lead to three bedrooms in three corners of the quadrangle and to a small unimportant-looking room in the fourth corner. The three bedrooms were exactly similar to each other and unlike anything to be found in the rest of the palace. They were large oblong rooms ; about a third of their area was occupied by a kind of dais twenty-four inches above the rest of the floor, and approached by five brick steps. In the centre of the end wall there was a kind of alcove, the floor of which was again four feet three inches above that of the dais. This alcove was decorated with* grooves and surmounted by an arch of enamelled brick (Fig. 90, Vol. I.). Its dimensions were nine feet wide by three feet four inches deep, or just a convenient space for a bed, which might be reached by movable steps. Thomas has not hesitated to introduce one into his restoration. The bas-reliefs furnished him with a model. 2 Observe that the courts of the harem give access to three main groups of chambers, and that those groups have no direct com- munication w T ith each other. Each of the three has its own separate entrance. Observe also that the three bed chambers we have mentioned have no entrances but those from the inner court ; that they are all richly decorated, and that nothing in their 1 The doorway beside which these artificial palms are raised is that which leads from the court U to the hall marked Y on the plan. As to the elements made use of in our restoration, see Place, vol. i. pp. 11 4-1 2 7, and vol. ii. p. 35. We have already noticed the discovery of the metal-sheathed poles (p. 202, and fig. 72). 2 Place, Ninive, vol. iii. plate 25, fig. 4.