Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/183

Bk. II. Ch. II. CHALDEAN TEMPLES. 151 Java ; and that the descent from these can easily be traced in those countries and in China to the pi-esent day. The principal reason why it is so difficult to form a distinct idea of this old form of temple is, that the material most employed in their construction was either crude, sun-dried, or very imperfectly-burnt bricks; or, when a better class of bricks was employed, as was pro- bably the case in Babylon, they have been quarried and used in the construction of succeeding capitals. A good deal also is owing to the circumstance that those who have exj)lored them have in many cases not been architects, or were persons not accustomed to architectural researches, and who consequently have failed to seize the peculiarities of the building they were exploring. Under these circumstances, it is fortunate that the Persians did for these temples exactly what they accomplished for the palace forms of Assyria. They repeated in stone in Persia what had been built in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris with wood, or with crude bricks. It thus hap]:>ens that the so-called tomb of Cyrus in Passar- gadse enables us to verify and to supply much that is wanting in the buildings at Babylon, and to realize much that would be otherwise indistinct in their forms. The oldest tem])le we know of at present is the Bowariyeh, at Wurka (Erek), erected by Urukh, at least 2000 years b. c. ; but now so utterly ruined, that it is difficult to make out what it originally was like. It seems, however, to have consisted of two stories at least ; the lowest about 200 feet square, of sun-dried bricks; the upper is faced with burnt bricks, apparently of a more modern date. The height of the two stories taken together is now about 100 feet, and it is nearly certain that a third, or chamber story, existed above the parts that are now apparent. ^ The Mugheyr Temple 2 is somewhat better preserved, but in this case it is only the lower story that can be considered old. The cylinders found in the angles of the upper ])art belong to Nabonidus, the last king of the later Babylonian kingdom ; and the third story only exists in ti-adition. Still, from such information as we have, we gather that its plan was originally a rectangle, 198 feet by 133, with nine buttresses in the longer, and six in the shorter faces. The walls slope inwards in the ratio of 1 in 10. Above them was a second story, 119 feet by 75, placed as is usual nearer one end of the lower story, so as to admit of a staircase being added at the other. It is 47 feet distant from the south-eastern end, and only 28 or 30 from the other ; but whether the whole of this was occupied by a flight of ' Loftus. " Chaldsea and Babylonia," p. 167. - Journal E. A. S., vol. xv. p. 260, et seq.