Note 82 — Chapter III · ASSYRIAN PALACES.

Space will not admit of my entering into all the reasons for this restoration here. If any one wishes for further information on the subject, I must refer him to my ‘Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis Restored,’ published in 1851. Nothing has occurred during the twenty-three years that have elapsed since that work was published that has at all shaken my views of the correctness of the data on which these restorations were based. On the contrary, every subsequent research has served only more and more to convince me of their general correctness, and I cannot now suggest any improvement even in details. [It should be noted that the author’s theory as to the covering over of the Assyrian halls with a flat roof carried on columns has never been accepted by foreign archæologists, and no trace has ever been found of the foundations which would be required to carry such columns. M. Place, who conducted the excavations at Khorsabad, and Messrs. Perrot & Chipiez, who, among others, have devoted much time and research to the subject, are of opinion that the halls were vaulted. It would be difficult now to determine the possibility of building vaults of thirty feet span in crude or unburnt brick, because we have no means of testing the resistance to crushing which such bricks might afford. The brick voussoirs found by M. Place in the arches of the town gates had been prepared in special moulds, and so completely dried that liquid clay had been used to cement them together. In some of the large halls, far away from the walls, and in some cases in the centre of the rooms, huge blocks of hard clay were found with their lower surface curved and covered with a layer of stucco; these masses were sometimes many metres long, one to two metres wide, nearly a metre thick. According to M. Place they formed part of a barrel vault covering the halls, and their size would account for the immense thickness of the walls constructed to carry them and resist their thrust, as well as for the peculiar shape of the halls; that is, their length as compared with their breadth. The sculptured slabs would seem to have been carved to be seen by a high side-light, which suggests openings of some kind, just above the springing of the vault, and above the flat roof of the smaller halls round.—Ed.]