rated by
every writer that saw them before their ruin. Unhappily nothing has come
down to us of the monuments of Chaldaea, and especially of those of Babylon,
but their basements and the central masses of the staged towers. The
Assyrian palaces are indeed in a better state of preservation, but even in
their case we ask many questions to which no certain answer is forthcoming.

The great difficulty in all our researches and attempts at restoration, is
caused by the complete absence of any satisfactory evidence as to the
nature of the roofs that covered rooms, either small or large. In most
cases the walls are only standing to a height of from ten to fifteen
feet;[191] in no instance has a wall with its summit still in place been
discovered.

The cut on the opposite page (Fig. 50) gives a fair idea of what a Ninevite
building looks like after the excavators have finished their work. It is a
view in perspective of one of the gates of Sargon's city: the walls are
eighty-eight feet thick, to which the buttresses add another ten feet;
their average height is from about twenty-five to thirty feet, high enough
to allow the archway by which the city was entered to remain intact. This
is quite an exception. In no part of the palace is there anything to
correspond to this happy find of M. Place--any evidence by which we can
decide the forms of Assyrian doorways. The walls are always from about
twelve to twenty-eight feet in thickness (see Fig. 46.) Rooms are
rectangular, sometimes square, but more often so long as to be galleries
rather than rooms in the ordinary sense of the word.

The way in which these rooms were covered in has been much discussed. Sir
Henry Layard believes only in flat roofs, similar to those of modern houses
in Mossoul and the neighbouring villages. He tells us that he never came
upon the slightest trace of a vault, while in almost every room that he
excavated he found wood ashes and carbonized timber.[192] He is convinced
that the destruction of several of these buildings was due in the first
instance to fire. Several pieces of sculpture, those from the palace of
Sennacherib, for instance, may be quoted, which when found were black with
soot. They look like castings in relief that have been long fixed at the
back of a fire-place.

Long and narrow rooms may have been roofed with beams of palm or poplar
resting upon the summits of the walls. As for the large halls, in the
centre they would be open to the sk