remarkable, there being no fewer than five of nearly equal
dimensions. The largest was 116 feet long, and 33 wide; the smallest 87
feet long, and 25 wide. The palace of Sennacherib at Koyuhjik contained
the most spacious apartment yet exhumed. It was immediately inside the
great portal, and extended in length 180 feet, with a uniform width of
forty feet. In one instance only, so far as appears, was an attempt made
to exceed this width. In the palace of Esarhaddon, the son of
Sennacherib, a hall was designed intended to surpass all former ones.
[PLATE XLIII., Fig. 2.] Its length was to be 165 feet, and its width 62;
consequently it would have been nearly one-third larger than the great
hall of Sennacherib, its area exceeding 10,000 square feet. But the
builder who had designed this grand structure appears to have been
unable to overcome the difficulty of carrying a roof over so vast an
expanse. He was therefore obliged to divide his hall by a wall down the
middle; which, though he broke it in an unusual way into portions, and
kept it at some distance from both ends of the apartment, still had the
actual effect of subdividing his grand room into four apartments of only
moderate size. The halls were paved with sun-burnt brick. They were
ornamented throughout by the elaborate sculptures, now so familiar to
us, carried generally in a single, but sometimes in a double line, round
the four walls of the apartment. The sculptured slabs rested on the
ground, and clothed the walls to the height of 10 or 12 feet. Above, for
a space which we cannot positively fix, but which was certainly not less
than four or five feet, the crude brick wall was continued, faced here
with burnt brick enamelled on the side towards the apartment, pleasingly
and sometimes even brilliantly colored. 10 The whole height of the walls
was probably from 15 to 20 feet.

[Illustration: PLATE 43]

By the side of the halls, or at their ends, and opening into them, or
sometimes collected together into groups, with no hall near, are the
smaller chambers of which mention has been already made. These chambers
are in every case rectangular: in their proportions they vary from
squares to narrow oblongs. 90 feet by 17, 85 by 16, 80 by 15, and the
like. When they are square, the side is never more than about 25 feet.
They are often as richly decorated as the halls, but sometimes are
merely faced with plain slabs or plastered; while occasionally they have
no facing at a