Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/61

Other Palaces of Mesopotamia. 43 Assyrian palace. This saloon would have been about 170 feet long by 63 feet wide. As soon as the walls were raised he saw that he could not roof it in. Neither barrel vault nor timber ceiling could have so great a span. He determined to get over the difficulty by erecting a central wall down the major axis of the room, upon which either timber beams or the springers of a double vault could rest. This wall was pierced by several openings, and was stopped some distance short of the two end walls. It divided the saloon into four different rooms (marked 1, 2, 3, 4 on our plan) each of which was by no means small. Even with this modification the magnificence of the original plan did not entirely disappear. The two colossal lions opposite the door were very wide apart, and all the openings between the various subdivisions Sp^l """^^^as^BsSli Fig. 16. — Plan of the south-western palace at Nimroud ; from Layard. were large enough to allow the eye to range freely over the whole saloon, and to grasp the first thought of the architect in its entirety. As to the buildings on the other sides of the court and the total extent of the palace, we know very little ; towards the west the walls of several saloons have been recognized, but they have been left half cleared. On the east, landslips have carried away part of the buildings. 1 Between the palace of Assurnazirpal and that of Esarhaddon Layard found what seemed to him the remains of the second story of some building, or at least of a new building erected over one of earlier date (Fig. 17). Impelled, no doubt, by the rarity 1 For an account of the excavations see Layard, Nimveh, vol. i. pp. 34, 39, 46, 59-62, 347-35°; vol. ii. pp. 25-36.