File:Nineveh and Babylon - a narrative of a second expedition to Assyria during the years 1849, 1850, and 1851 (1882) (14744349896).jpg

Identifier: ninevehbabylonna00laya (find matches)
Title: Nineveh and Babylon : a narrative of a second expedition to Assyria during the years 1849, 1850, & 1851
Year: 1882 (1880s)
Authors: Layard, Austen Henry, Sir, 1817-1894
Subjects: Nineveh (Extinct city) Babylon (Extinct city) Middle East -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : J. Murray
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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d by the building, and I agree with Mr. Fergussonin attributing it to the mode resorted to for lighting theapartments. In my former work I expressed a belief that the cham-bers received light from the top. Although this may havebeen the case in some instances, yet recent discoveries nowprove that the Assyrian palaces had more than one stor).Such being the case, it is evident that other means musthave been adopted to admit light to the inner rooms onthe ground-floor. Mr. Fergussons suggestion, that theupper part of the halls and prihcipal chambers was fonnedby a row of pillars supporting the ceiling and admitting a cc 384 NINEVEH AND BABYLON. (Chap. free circulation of light and air, appears to me to meet,to a certain extent, the difficulty. It has, moreover, beenborne out by subsequent discoveries, and by the repre-sentation of a large building, apparently a palace, on oneof the bas-reliefs from Kouyunjik.* In the accompanyingwoodcut an edifice is seen with openings at equal distances
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Exterior of a Bnilding (From a Bas-relief at Kouyunjfk.) immediately beneath the roof, each opening being formedby two low columns with capitals resembling the Ionic. Inthe restoration of the exterior of the Kouyunjik palaceforming the frontispiece to this volume, pillars with similarcapitals have been adopted in preference to those taken byMr, Fergusson from Persepolis, which, although undoubtedly, * See also 2nd series of Monuments of Nineveh, Plate 40. XIV,) ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. 385 like the other architectural details of those celebrated ruins,Assyrian in character, are not authorised by any knownAssyrian remains.* Although the larger halls may have been lighted in thismanner, yet the inner chambers must have remained in almost entire darkness. And it is not improbable that suchwas the case, to judge from modern Eastern houses, in whichthe rooms are purposely kept dark to mitigate the great heat.The sculptures and decorations in them could then onlybe properly seen by torchlight

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